


Able to Fly

by busaikko



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Character Death, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Community: sgareversebang, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-30
Updated: 2012-06-30
Packaged: 2017-11-08 21:13:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 25,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/447638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/busaikko/pseuds/busaikko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Magical AU (with Stargates). Rodney buys a haunted comic book when he's 12 and discovers a best friend; but will he sacrifice his future – and John's afterlife – to make John real?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Take My Hand

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my beta/cheerleader, mific, for encouragement and extreme hand-holding.
>
>>   
> Come on baby... don't fear the reaper  
> Baby take my hand... don't fear the reaper  
> We'll be able to fly...  
> Don't Fear the Reaper (Blue Oyster Cult)  
> 
> 
> Inspired by [kay-greatness' Never Gonna Give You Up](http://kay-greatness.dreamwidth.org/1368.html).
> 
> Warnings in the end notes.

"And stop leaving your wet towels on the floor," Rodney's mom added, a coda to yet another lecture about being disappointed in him, and pulled the door shut behind her.

"Someday I'll be famous and you'll be sorry," Rodney told the doorknob, but quietly. He didn't want her coming back. "Next time I won't make just a model, I'll blow everything up starting with this stupid house." He looked at his walls, stripped bare of Batman posters, and his bookshelf, reduced to textbooks and dictionaries. His mother had even taken away his Captain James T. Kirk t-shirt and his collection of Star Wars action figures.

They'd been really _good_ action figures, too. They came with their own modifiable enchantments, so after a few weeks of experimentation Luke and Leia had been able to sneak down the hall on missions to Jeannie's room, cutting off Barbie's hair and hiding the baby-doll tea set. Once Rodney had stayed up all night perfecting a series of spells that allowed Darth Vader to rappel down the staircase and hide a note from his teacher in the rubbish bin.

Rodney was good at magic; he always had been. He'd wanted to be a famous bard, like David Bowie or John Lennon, and travel the world bending people to his will, but he'd never been able to combine music and magic. His talent, his teachers told him, lay in practical directions. Engineering, they suggested. Architecture. Manufacturing.

There was no _excitement_ in his practical magic coursework. Which was why Rodney built a working model of a thaumo-nuclear bomb, based on articles in some old issues of Modern Sorcery he'd found in the library basement.

"Wet towels," Rodney mimicked, pacing and thinking about running away. It would serve his mother right if he fell off the edge of the world and was swallowed whole by space whales. _He_ always dried his towel and made it hang itself back up, but he wouldn't put anything past Jeannie, who was a little nosy _pest_ and always getting him in trouble.

He threw himself across his bed with great dramatic effect, and then yelped at the way the quilt _squished_ under him, sodden like someone had upended an entire pitcher of ice water over it. He scrambled backwards, falling off, and looked down at the sopping front of his t-shirt in disgust.

Fortunately, Rodney's mother hadn't touched his magical supplies, and he still had his jar full of drying powder – his own formula, which smelled better than the cheap three-dollar boxes his mother bought. Rodney got his breathing under control and then carefully shook out one scant spoonful. The powder sparked blue and made his shirt steam, but he had to use another spoonful before he was satisfied that he wasn't going to catch pneumonia and die from whatever Jeannie had done to his bed – another tea party, he thought darkly, and her enchantment of the baby doll teapot was still pathetic. Since his mother would never believe in his innocence, not after the bomb thing, there was no point in even telling her. He'd deal with Jeannie later.

"Wet towels _my ass_ ," Rodney said, feeling bold at swearing out loud, and dragged the quilt off the bed to work on the reverse side.

When the quilt was only damp and Rodney had made sure the sheets and pillows weren't ruined, he shoved his window up to let the humid, soapy-smelling air out. He was caught up in righteous annoyance and pacing, when his left foot came down right in the center of a frigid puddle. Rodney _knew_ the floor had been dry a moment before, and he stared up, looking for leaks or tiny thunderclouds or maybe even portals to other, wetter dimensions, which would be totally cool. His house was _ancient_ , with narrow rooms and high ceilings and perverse acoustics, and every floor sloped in a different direction; exactly the sort of house that held magical secrets. In books.

In real life, nothing was there – of course – so Rodney peeled off his nasty sock and threw it at the door hard. It stuck to the wood and hung for a moment before sliding down, and Rodney found himself grinning widely at the boy who was standing there grinning back. The boy's expression faltered when he saw that Rodney was looking at him, but then he squared his shoulders and pointed at the sock, and the door, and Rodney. He raised one eyebrow awkwardly, as if he'd practiced Mr. Spock's gesture and thought he looked as suave as the space-traveling Other Side magician.

The expression just made the boy look pretty goofy, which was why Rodney wasn't scared.

"You're a ghost," Rodney said, pointing. The boy shrugged and dripped. "Did you drown?" Rodney asked. The boy nodded and Rodney felt his eyes widen: he'd never met anyone dead before. "Do you need to get revenge on someone? Do you have to go home?"

The boy shook his head vehemently in answer to the last question, water flying from his wet hair. He looked so frightened that Rodney felt scared himself.

"You can stay here," Rodney said. "I don't mind. But you have to turn the faucet off. My mother probably wouldn't let me keep a ghost, if she knew."

The boy sighed, and twisted his face up in exaggerated concentration. Nothing happened. Rodney dried the floorboards quickly, before the water leaked into the hall.

"You can't talk," Rodney said, feeling pleased like he'd solved a puzzle. "Are you cursed? I've never broken a real curse before."

The boy bit his lip, and then opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue and mimed scissors. Rodney's mother's last boyfriend had liked reading crime thrillers, and Rodney knew that all evil pulp-fiction murderers cast spells on their victims' corpses to keep the dead from being revived enough to identify them, but.... He'd never met anyone before who'd actually been killed and cursed, and the boy was smaller than he was, and it just seemed _horrible_.

"Ew," Rodney said, and the boy made a face and nodded. "If you were dry you could sit on the bed," Rodney offered. "And I could tell you about movies." He thought about his mother's Oxford Advanced Grimoire down in the living room and sighed. "I need to go steal a book."

The boy politely stepped away from the door. He was wearing black Converse All-Stars, and they left a trail of flat wet footprints.

When Rodney crept back up the stairs, tip-toeing around every creaking board, arms loaded with books just-in-case, he felt a buzz of excitement, the way he had back when he played the lute, like he was about to embark on an _adventure_. He slipped into his room and shut the door, and then nearly jumped out of his skin when the boy appeared in front of the closet, pointing at the door insistently.

Rodney nearly snapped at the kid to just _say_ what he wanted, but obviously that wouldn't work, so he opened the closet door with a short-tempered flourish and then squatted quickly to move his boxes of Lego away from the dripping fingers that were insistent about something way in the back. The boy looked frustrated, so Rodney forgot that maybe he should be cautious and reached back, not realizing until he was pulling out a damp stack of comic books that he'd stuck his hands right _though_ the boy's.

"Gross," Rodney said, dropping the comics and wiping water off on his pants. "Not you," he added quickly, because the boy had pulled back and tucked his hands into his armpits. "It's not your fault you're dead," he went on. "Is it?"

The boy shrugged.

"Yeah, you're what, nine?" The boy narrowed his eyes in annoyance. "You're a little kid," Rodney corrected himself. The boy stuck out his tongue and made a grab for the comics. "Did you hide these from my mother? Because, good job if you did, she hates all this –" he made quotation marks in the air –"fantastic science nonsense."

The boy nodded and then reached out, very slowly and carefully, making a big show of not touching, to gesture for Rodney to turn over _Batman: DEATH of a DAREDEVIL_. Rodney did so and winced.

"I'm glad I didn't pay cover price," he said, annoyed that he hadn't noticed the sticker that the boy was pointing out. He picked at one corner pessimistically with a fingernail. That's what he got for buying from the Bargain Bin at the comics store. The sticker was firmly adhered to the glossy paper, right over the form that you could clip out to send away for Charles Atlas' physique potions. " _Return to John Inkblot_ ," he read, squinting. The name had been written in blue marker, which was running because of the damp and further ruining the book. "I should make John Inkblot give me my money back."

The kid waved to get Rodney's attention, and then pointed from the sticker, to his chest. Rodney frowned, which earned him an impatient roll of watery eyes, and then another, slower round of pantomime. Then the boy shoved one hand into his pocket, pretended to pull out a wallet, and started counting out invisible coins.

"Urgh!" Rodney yelped as comprehension hit, dropping the comics and scooting away until his back hit the closet door. "Dead kid comics."

John Whatever crossed his arms and glared at Rodney. Then he pointed at the comics and himself, and raised his arms up, hands droopy, in a fairly good impersonation of the kind of ghouls who chased Scooby-Doo all the time, except they were never really from the Other Side. Usually they were just greedy people in rubber masks.

Rodney's heart was still pounding, and all the hair on his arms was on end, and his mouth was dry, but he tried to give John a smile anyway. "Haunted comics," he corrected himself. He looked at John, who had wet hair and had gone to his eternal unrest in a baby-blue polo shirt with the collar turned up, like a model in an Eaton's ad. "You're not scary enough to make my _sister_ cry." He tried not to think too hard as he picked the comics up, gingerly. He spread them out on his desk so he could dry them, even though it was probably a waste of drying powder, and he'd have to make more, and he'd spent most of his money on comics.

With a put-upon sigh, he started his research, interrupting himself every few minutes to dry whatever John had dripped all over.

Rodney tried a few intermediate household enchantments, but what worked on polyester and dirty dishes was ineffectual on ghosts, apparently. He had to go all the way down to the creepy unfinished basement to borrow his mother's besom cast-iron cauldron. He used up some of the best elements in his alchemical kit in order to brew first a powerful dessicant, and then with a display of confidence he didn't actually feel, he went through the thirteen steps of Curse Breaking from his mother's copy of the Modern Women's Compendium. John jumped over the broom obediently as directed, even though he got confused when Rodney told him to face the east. Rodney half-expected John to vanish as soon as the enchantment terminated with a subtle but pervasive whiff of sulfur, but instead John just gave him a thumbs-up and grabbed a Berni Wrightson issue of Swamp Thing from the desk.

"I'm not feeding you," Rodney announced as John stretched out on the bed and flipped the cover open. Rodney felt like had lost control. John should be more grateful. "And you have to not be boring. Or stupid."

John looked up through a heavy fall of hair that looked, now that it was dry, like someone had stuck a bowl on his head and chopped around it. He held up one hand and made the _okay_ sign, and went back to reading.

*

The next day, Rodney came home from school, annoyed Jeannie, watched cartoons on thaum-o-vision, and was forced to eat broccoli soup for dinner. When he finally dragged himself up to his room, sure that John would be gone and his life would have reverted to tedium, John was in the same position he'd been the night before, flopped across his bed, except now he was reading one of Jeannie's _Choose Your Own Adventure_ books.

"You're still here," Rodney said. He'd been hoping so, but John hadn't been in his room when he woke up, and his whole day had been a knot of disappointment and worry. Which dissipated quickly enough when John made a big production of sighing and looking up. "This haunting deal – what exactly are you going to _do_? Do you have to complete a mission? Aren't you _bored_?"

John licked his bottom lip, which Rodney was starting to realize was a nervous tic. Then he shook his head, shrugged, and then nodded.

"Huh." Rodney sat down on the bed; John scooted over so Rodney didn't sit through his legs. Rodney had hoped that breaking the leaking-faucet enchantment would allow John to speak, but for some reason it hadn't. John might have been cursed twice, or maybe Rodney's mother's book wasn't that good. Rodney wished he could ask someone, but his teachers would probably just call the police, and his mother would call his teachers. Kids in books always had cool magical mentors; Rodney'd tried to find one, but they were thin on the ground in Toronto. He stared at John, wondering, and then figured he might as well just ask. "Did anyone talk to you about this whole ghosting thing, or did you just... wake up dead, and it's all self-study?"

John spread his hands. He didn't look happy. Rodney bet it sucked to get asked how you'd died. Embarrassing, the way Rodney had felt when his mom explained sex and babies to him. Even though Rodney had learned all that stuff in health, hearing his mother say _masturbation_ had made him want to become one of those ascetic sorcerers like in books, who took vows of eternal celibacy in return for unlimited power.

"Okay," Rodney said, and then nodded decisively. "Right. I've got tons of homework, plus independent projects I'm working work on because I _have_ to go the the Academy, there's no _way_ I'm going to go into a trade after leaving school. I could maybe teach you. We could be a team, if it turns out you're not an idiot. Also if you can hold a pencil. And make a passable drying powder."

John tossed Jeannie's book at Rodney, looking startled and then a little pleased with himself when it bounced off Rodney's shoulder.

"Ow," Rodney snapped. "Or I could try and exorcise you."

John rolled to sitting quickly, putting his palms together in a pose of apology or supplication, or maybe sarcasm, it was hard to tell with John. And then he slid to his feet and went over to the desk to grab a pencil with one hand and Rodney's backpack straps with the other. He managed to look casual for the first two slow steps, but then the bag started to slip through his fingers. Rodney could see him struggling to stay material enough to keep the bag up, but after another heavy step John had to lower the bag to the floor, shoulders rounded in defeat, breathing hard even though Rodney knew he didn't need to breathe. The panting was just some residual habit from when John was alive, and it made Rodney feel sorry for him.

Still. "That was pathetic," Rodney said, going over to grab his backpack and toss it onto the bed. "Is that what you do all day, work on being a better haunter? You need a new hobby." He pulled out his textbooks, arraying them like a fan. "What do you want to work on, numerology or astrology or logical enchantments?"

John unbent and looked at the books, not Rodney. He carried the pencil carefully over to the bed and pointed to the numerology book.

"It's advanced," Rodney warned. "If you don't know the theory behind the correlation between numbers and magic, well." He paused. "I could explain it to you," he went on, slowly and grudgingly. "I guess."

John flipped the book open to page 171 – Rodney's teacher would have argued that this was significant, somehow – and ran his finger slowly under the lines of the first problem in the review exercises. Then he wrote out the formula in the margin, reduced it, and added the solution like an afterthought. He didn't even seem to think about the calculations at all.

"I hate you," Rodney said, annoyed that John hadn't made any mistakes. John's grin was radiant and obnoxious. Rodney turned to page 287, which was a complex word problem that took up a page and a half. "Bet I can solve it faster."

An hour later they were tied, two to two, but John had only lost the last problem because the pencil kept falling out of his dematerializing fingers.

"You probably just need some sleep," Rodney said, trying to be comforting, before he remembered that John probably didn't sleep. "If you've already covered this material in school you must be older than you look. How old are you?"

John managed to get the pencil tip onto the page, but it stayed frozen there as if stuck, even though Rodney could see John struggling to make it move. After a minute, the pencil toppled through John's fingers and onto the bedspread.

"I was kind of hoping I could get around your curse," Rodney said ruefully, and tossed all his books, notebooks, and clutter of writing and measuring paraphernalia back into his bag. He shoved it onto the floor and pulled his pajamas out from under his pillow. He waved at the door. "I'm just going to take a shower. Don't go anywhere."

John looked up at him, head tipped to the side, hair a ridiculous mess, and gave Rodney a flash of a smile.

"Good," Rodney said, with a decisive nod. "Good."

*

In a way John came to fit into Rodney's life like a bizarre cross between his annoying younger sister and an imaginary friend. He was almost always hanging out in Rodney's room when Rodney got home, moving Rodney's stuff around and messing things up. But Rodney liked talking to him; they were interested in a lot of the same things, and even when John was mad he couldn't call Rodney names. Rodney didn't have many friends, mostly just the other kids at school who didn't fit in, and he planned on leaving them behind and never looking back.

John kept Rodney on his toes. He matched Rodney's progress in school effortlessly, unlike Rodney's classmates (and most of his teachers), and being forced out of his comfort zone made Rodney more creatively subversive. Rodney had wondered if John was going to stay a little kid forever, but he seemed to grow at the same rate as Rodney did – which if Rodney thought about it, was pretty weird. John went from short and scrawny to short and stocky – all that hard work lifting pencils, Rodney teased – and then practically overnight grew six inches and started tripping over his own feet.

It took both of them all of one summer break to figure out the thaumaturgy necessary to enchant John's clothes and make alterations to the outfit he'd died in, which had become almost indecently small. Once John knew the proper series of spells he practiced conjuring random new outfits based on the pin-up boys in Jeannie's pre-teen heartthrob magazines. Every other day Rodney was assaulted with increasingly-hideous parachute pants and sherbert-colored shirts until finally he tossed John's Batman comic into his bag and forced John out of the house, onto the back of his bicycle, and all the way to the Bloor cinema to see O.S: The Traveler from the Other Side.

O.S. wasn't played by a real Other Sider, but the animation enchantments were pretty good, and the Hollywood studio had built an amazingly-detailed copy of the Colorado Stargate for O.S. to toddle through at the end. Rodney could hear people all over the cinema sniffling, but he was caught up in a fantasy where he built a Stargate in front of the house and _didn't_ get yelled at by his mom.

John staggered out of the theater with a burning desire to enchant Rodney's bicycle to fly them home through the air and the annoying habit of poking Rodney with one finger while mouthing _O.S. dial home_. If Rodney did build a Stargate, he'd throw John through it to shut him up. Sadly, the government refused to confirm or deny the rumors that Canada had a Stargate of its own, dug out of the Arctic ice, and there was no way Rodney's mom was going to let him travel to Colorado for research purposes. But John started dressing in normal clothes after seeing the film, and Rodney counted that as a win.

John was only able to work magic on himself, they'd discovered early on; Rodney suspected this was because he couldn't manipulate real-world magical particles. But he could design enchantments, and he worked hard on the ones for Rodney's bicycle, spending hours with Rodney poring over library books. There wasn't much precedent for things that flew aside from airplanes, which were more mechanical than magical in Rodney's opinion. Gravity wasn't supposed to be defied, but John figured out how to build a magical framework for turning gravity upside down in a localized space.

In the park, preparing for flight, John hovered like he had serious control issues while Rodney put the enchantments in place and engaged them, and then was sickeningly smug when the bicycle rose into the air as lightly as a balloon. But even Rodney had to admit that flying was pretty amazing, at least until a misjudgment about airspeed and turning ratio led to a run-in with a pine tree. The bicycle frame was bent nearly in two by the impact, but John had thrown himself between Rodney and the ground and used all the strength he had to keep Rodney safe.

John was pale and immaterial for days afterward, and shook his head shortly whenever Rodney suggested the bicycle might be fixable. Rodney distracted him by developing some spells so John could change his hairstyle, and then had to put up with the world's most alarming black liberty spikes until John got bored.

Shortly after _that_ , Rodney developed horrible spots, nearly gained height on John, and discovered masturbation.

In retaliation for being kicked out of the room while Rodney had quote-unquote private time, John taught himself how to play Rodney's disused lute while everyone was out of the house for the day. Most of what he played were murder ballads, which led to Rodney getting a lecture from his mother about his inappropriate fixation on violence and being a bad influence on Jeannie, and how hard it was being a single parent, and kids these days.

"If she makes me talk to the school counselor, I'll do violence to _you_ ," Rodney told John after he escaped.

John plucked out the first notes of _Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte_ before Rodney could grab the lute from him and threaten to toss it out the window. John sprawled across the bed and laughed silently at him.

In February Rodney sat the exam for the Toronto National Academy of Magic. The Academy was located between Lake Shore Boulevard and the train tracks, and the campus was dominated by century-old red brick buildings much like Rodney's house. The two standout exceptions to the Academy's architecture were a ghastly cement library from the 1960s and the massive Experimental Magic Facility, housed under a protective shield that glowed tantalizingly next to the CN Tower.

The exam had morning and afternoon sessions, and Rodney took an early bus to make sure he found the proper examination hall. He'd heard rumors about buildings on campus moving about overnight, and didn't want to get lost. John came with him as far as the ominous wrought-iron gates, and he waited there until Rodney staggered out at half past four, with fingers stiff from writing and earth-shakingly huge news to impart.

Except... Rodney knew what he'd discovered, but he wasn't sure what it actually meant for him, or for John. He didn't know if telling John would be a good thing, or just cruel.

During the hour's break for lunch, when most of the other exam-takers were cramming in the library, Rodney had gone down to look at the Experimental Magic Facility. He'd been restless from sitting still too long, and curious: he'd lived in Toronto his whole life, but he'd never been allowed this close to the city's most famous magical landmark. He wanted to see if there was a doorway.

The shield around the EMF was opaque, though, and impermeable. Rodney could touch it, but it resisted like a very firm mattress, which was a disappointment. He had finished both of his sandwiches and was sitting on a bench reviewing alchemical processes when a small cluster of professors in formal robes emerged from the administration building. He didn't recognize them so he assumed they weren't famous – at least not famous enough to be on TV – but they were escorting a child-sized, gray-skinned, big-eyed Other Sider who looked exactly like O.S. in the film, right down to being completely naked and without visible genitalia.

Rodney had thirty – well, twenty-eight – minutes before the afternoon session commenced. So he followed them.

He wasn't good at being stealthy, but they were preoccupied. The Other Sider was questioning about whether the Academy was academically advanced enough to fully appreciate some kind of bequest, and the professors were being obsequious, in a worn-down kind of way, as if they'd been through several rounds of the same conversation before. When they reached the shield, the taller professor in glasses studied it for a moment, then reached out and pressed his palm to it several times, as if pushing buttons. A gap in the shield opened like curtains pulling back, and the taller professor let the Other Sider precede them inside.

The door was shut again by the time Rodney got there, looking around to make sure no one was watching him. The surface of the shield was blank, but he tried the button-pressing trick and discovered that the shield displayed glowing lines between the places he touched. He tried to copy the pattern that the professor had used. Communicating with John had given him the advantage of paying careful attention to hand-gestures and movements. There had been two sets of actions, three presses in a line and then four more in a counter-clockwise circle.... 

His first try didn't work, but the fading glow of lights reminded Rodney of... of star-charts, he thought; of Ursa Minor, tail pointing to Polaris. He tried again, adding in some subtle artistic flourishes as he visualized the constellation. He almost missed the faint blue light that glowed on when he pressed the area corresponding to Akhfa al Farkadain. Tapping the light quickly, the shield hummed as if pleased, and parted.

The inside of the dome was weirdly devoid of hiding places, and Rodney felt momentary panic as he sidled away from where the doorway had been. Getting caught would mean losing his chance at going to the Academy, the police again, his mother.... Not worth the risk at all, except – 

he was curious.

The dome was big enough to hold half of Cabbagetown by the look of it, but mostly contained quasi-Egyptian pillars outlining avenues that all led to a central raised dias, which the professors were heading for, walking at the Other Sider's short-legged pace. Rodney stood behind a pillar and peered around, feeling his guilt as a kind of terror that someone was about to sneak up on him. Set on top of the dias was a dark grey ring, and Rodney nearly hyperventilated as he realized that it was a Stargate. He didn't even need to be close enough to make out the stylized constellations set around the ring in accordance with esoteric astrological principles; he'd seen enough movies to know what was going to happen.

He knew he needed to leave, but he lurked long enough to watch the shorter blond professor press her hands to a conjuration console. The rings of the Stargate spun, a portal to the Other Side exploded outwards and was immediately contained, and the Other Sider struggled to mount the dias.

_O.S. Phone home_ , Rodney thought, stunned, and then turned to creep back towards the doorway. Tapping out Ursa Minor worked from the inside as well, thanks be to deities Rodney didn't believe in. He slipped outside, took a deep breath, and ran as fast as he could for the hall where he was sitting his exams.

He had five minutes to spare, but he was nearly late because the hall had drifted south and had settled on the far side of the Bardic Hall.

Rodney couldn't wait to tell John about the Other Sider and the Stargate. He thought John would think he was making it up; he thought the whole experience was fantastic himself. But he also suspected that John knew all about the research Rodney was trying to do in secret, on how to raise the dead. Rodney didn't want to get John's hopes up, and so far nothing he'd read seemed promising. Most books about ghosts were written by people who'd never even seen one, and most books about reanimation were writen by self-styled dark wizards who were all about the posturing and the sex dungeons. Although Rodney thought the sex parts were made-up as well.

The most promising leads were all from people who had traveled to the Other Side and worked with magicians there. Rodney had no idea how many Stargates there were besides the ones in the USSR, the US, and Canada; there might be hundreds, but most governments preferred not to advertize either their locations or what they'd discovered on the Other Side. Rodney had assumed that he'd need to be at least a graduate student before he'd be considered for any kind of research position, which would mean John waiting another five years, by which time John would have been dead for nearly longer than he'd been alive.

John seemed resigned to his fate, but Rodney wasn't. John had a problem, and there was nothing Rodney liked better than solving problems. And now the possible answers were just _there_ , hidden under the soft glow of the dome. Rodney was tempted to do very stupid things.

All of which could cause him to lose John, or lose his chance at the Academy, or both.

While worrying over what to say, Rodney walked with John down towards the harbor, buying himself a cup of take-away coffee and a sticky roll on the way. He found a secluded bench and they sat there, John silent while Rodney ate, but fidgety. When the food had taken the edge off Rodney's nerves, he took out a notebook and wrote out the exam questions from memory, passing them over to John.

John frowned and chewed on his lip as he worked through the problems; he nearly dropped the notebook a few times, distracted by complex equations and formulae. Rodney didn't tell John that he was relieved that John's answers mostly matched his own – he of course was confident in his own success, but independent corroboration was always comforting.

"So?" Rodney asked, impatient to be corroborated. John bumped him with an elbow, and then gave him double thumbs-up.

"Exactly," Rodney said, vindicated, and swallowed down the last cold gulp of coffee. The official results wouldn't be out for another three weeks, but the Academy would be fools not to accept him. And, he decided, he didn't need to tell John about the Stargate today. He would continue his research, wait until he'd been accepted, and then present John with a plan. Maybe they could get permission to spend the summer in the Academy library. He could argue that it was an independent project.

When the acceptance letter did come, though, Rodney had a fit of nerves and asked April Bingham out instead. They went out to dinner and saw a film, and Rodney caught mono, which meant he missed most of his last term at public school because he was stuck in bed.

The worst part of being ill was the constant feeling that he was about to die: the nausea and aches, the sore throat and pounding head, the way his mother acted like he'd got sick just to make her life more difficult. But he liked how John treated him when he was sick. John had been making himself scarce every time Rodney babbled nervously about his upcoming date with April, or jerked off thinking about it, and Rodney'd felt abandoned: what was a best friend for, if not to congratulate you for first kisses and awkward but glorious hugs? But when Rodney was curled up in bed and miserable, John played stupid songs on the lute for him, and brought him water to drink when Rodney's mom and Jeannie weren't around, and eased Rodney's fevered brow with his icy hands.

Rodney was a little put out when the disease had run its course. He missed being waited on.

Despite being assured by the doctor that he could resume normal activities, Rodney was more than willing to pretend that he still had the energy of wilted spinach at the end of May, when his mom planned to take them all to her best friend's wedding.

"You and Jeannie go." Rodney tried to imbue the words with selfless nobility, but it mostly came out as a whine. "It's all girl stuff, anyway. I'll just stay here and watch shows on TV."

"You'll study," his mother told him. "You still need to turn in your assignments to graduate."

Rodney made all kinds of promises before mounting the stairs in glee.

"Did you hear that?" he asked John. "I have _total control of the house_ for three days."

_Hard bargain_ John scrawled across the top of the book report he'd spent the day completing – after all, it wasn't like Rodney wanted to read _War and Peace_ , and John wasn't averse to literature.

"Fine, be sarcastic." Rodney rubbed the words away carefully with the eraser. "It's not like you won't enjoy not having to sneak around. You can watch TV, you can look at dirty magazines with me, we can order pizza for breakfast." John rolled his eyes. "I'll tell you how good it is, that's nearly the same."

John flipped to a new page in the notebook and wrote very deliberately, _I don't like your porn._

Rodney had one very old copy of _Hustler_ , four _Victoria's Secret_ catalogs and a badly-edited paperback titled _Lusty Mrs Lewis_ ; it wasn't like he was _proud_ of his collection, but it was the best he could do. Hiding things from his mother was hard; she didn't even need to read runes to know when Rodney was guilty of hiding something. "You can't jerk off, right," Rodney said awkwardly. "It makes sense, you don't eat or bleed or breathe. And I guess porn's not _academically_ stimulating." He waved desultorily towards the desk, and the pile of Russian novels there.

_I tried_ , John wrote. The pencil lines were growing fainter, the way they always did when he was talking about himself. Usually he only managed a few sentences before he couldn't write any more. _With the magazine, but I was think --_ The pencil slipped through his fingers, and John shoved his hands into his hair in frustration. Then he gave Rodney an angry, embarrassed glance and pointed at him, looking away.

"My shirt?" Rodney asked, looking down. "My _pants_ – my _dick_? Is this a jealousy thing?"

John shoved to his feet, walked over, and tapped Rodney's chest twice with one finger. Then he leaned in close and put his mouth over Rodney's, very carefully, so it actually felt like being kissed by someone real. Rodney's eyes were wide open with surprise, but John's were closed, and after a long awkward moment John faded out entirely.

"That's not fair," Rodney called, but he was fairly sure John wasn't around to hear. John had places he went to be by himself, and Rodney had always made it a point not to track him down in a creepy way, even though modifying a lost-property enchantment to find a ghost would probably be so easy he could do it in his sleep. Rodney suspected that John would be very unforgiving of creepiness on his part, and after all, John was stuck with Rodney. Even Rodney's own mother was looking forward to getting away from him for three days of ugly dresses and weird food.

Rodney only knew one kid at school who was gay, but fortunately he'd been in Rodney's study group for Mr Moreno's Advanced Numerology the previous term. Peter had passed the exam; he owed Rodney.

He followed Peter after school the next day, waiting until they'd turned the block before blurting out, "Can I ask you something?"

"I'm seeing someone," Peter said. "Try and live with the disappointment." Peter played hockey and had muscles and cool friends. Rodney doubted he was ever not seeing someone.

"Who?" Rodney asked, and then waved his hand in negation. It wasn't like he cared. "Whatever. If someone kisses you, how do you know if you like it because you're gay or if it's just because you like... him?"

Peter frowned, stopping and studying Rodney critically. "Would you sleep with him?" Rodney shrugged; he fell asleep with John all the time. Sometimes when he woke up parts of his body were _inside_ John, which usually grossed him out and made John laugh until he was silently wheezing. "Would you put your hand on his dick?" Peter clarified.

"I think I'd try anything once," Rodney admitted, wondering what John's dick was like – vestigial, he supposed, something only useful to the living. "Sex's got to be better with another person, right?"

Peter's expression went distant. "God, I hope so."

"Blowjobs," Rodney offered, out of a sudden feeling of virginal solidarity. "I have this magazine, it says – "

"Yeah," Peter agreed, his voice a bit scratchy. "You probably," he added, "your friend? You don't need to be _gay_ gay, just gay enough."

"Huh." Peter nodded, and backed up a couple of steps, tipping his head towards the bus stop. "That's... thank you."

"Did he give you mono?" Peter asked abruptly, his face brightening as if suddenly seeing Rodney as more than just a numerology nerd.

"No," Rodney snapped. "And don't tell people that."

But Peter had spotted his bus and was jogging away, raising one hand in apology and good-bye. Rodney hoped that April appreciated that he'd protected her honor. Sort of. He'd never see these people again once he left school, he reminded himself, and turned towards home, hoping that John would be there.

John didn't show up for four days, by which time Rodney had started carrying around John's Batman comic like a talisman, looking at the smudged ink that used to be John's name and wondering if a person could be erased just as easily. He hoped not.

He'd once been forced to accompany his mother and his sister to see Disney's Peter Pan, and his mind kept turning over the scene where Tinkerbell's life was saved because little children on This Side believed in fairies from the Other Side. He told himself it was a false and inappropriate parallel, because he hadn't believed in John at all when they first met, and because John hadn't ever been to the Other Side.

Rodney had asked him point-blank once, and John had said no, but he'd wanted to be an Other Side explorer as a kid – like anybody with a sense of adventure, really. John had talked about flying horses and monsters and castles, and Rodney had tried to tell him that the _really_ interesting thing about the Other Side was that magic was different there, intrinsic and innate. On This Side magic was just specialized particles, according to the most current thaumatological theories, whose states could be predictably altered through alchemical processes and programmed with enchantments and understood through numerological analysis. But on the Other Side... well, from what Rodney understood it was a lot like Tinkerbell: if you believed in something then it became real.

John stayed away until Friday afternoon, when Rodney's mom's and Jeannie rushed out the door to catch the first bus for their intercity wedding adventure. Rodney waved goodbye self-consciously from the top of the front steps, hoping no one saw, and went back into the house, locking the door. He walked through the living room to the kitchen to have a non-nutritious dinner, and after a moment noticed John lurking in the kitchen doorway, watching Rodney pour himself a huge bowl of Smurf-Berry Crunch.

"I was worried about you," Rodney said, getting milk from the refrigerator and stirring carefully as he poured, so it turned a uniform magical blue. Jeannie believed that real Smurfs lived somewhere on the Other Side, but Rodney had strong doubts. "You could've disappeared _forever_ and I'd never even know what happened."

John shrugged and faded a little more into the woodwork. He was dressed differently, Rodney thought, though with the fading and lurking it was hard to tell. Rolled-up jeans and a black jacket, with a pair of sunglasses dangling from one pocket. Rodney felt under-dressed in his underwear and bathrobe.

Rodney sighed and put down the milk and his spoon. He went over to John and tried to give him a hug, which failed because John was being immaterial. Rodney badgered John until he made himself solid enough for Rodney to wrap his arms around and hold on. John didn't hug back, or if he did Rodney couldn't feel it, and Rodney felt uneasily like his mother, whose embraces he'd been ducking since he turned ten.

"I don't hate you," Rodney said, figuring that was a good place to start. "You could have mentioned you were gay any time in the last four years, you know. You surprised me."

John slid through Rodney's arms, a chill that made the hair at the back of his neck stand on end, and walked across the room to watch the cereal wilting in the blue milk. He dipped a finger in, made a face, and then started writing on the countertop.

Rodney started to tell him that was disgusting, but he was curious about what John had to say.

_I thought maybe he knew_ scrawled between the stove and the sink in big wet letters; _The guy who. Maybe why he_ – and that was all John could manage, his finger unable to touch the milk anymore.

Rodney grabbed the sponge and wiped it all up before it could stain. "Why he killed you?" John stared at him flatly, his mouth tight. "You were a little kid. Nothing you _did_ or _are_ deserves that."

John sighed. Rodney ate a spoonful of cereal quickly, before it tuned completely into sludge.

John dipped his finger in again, biting his lip in concentration. _I went back_ , he wrote. _There._

Rodney frowned. "To your house – where your family is?" John shook his head, and Rodney got another chill. "Where," and he waved a hand at John, up and down, "you're buried?"

John snorted. _Just small bones_ , he wrote, and that was a _terrible_ image, bad enough for Rodney to lose his appetite entirely. He scrubbed the words away, and threw the sponge into the sink. He knew about John's death but sometimes he forgot it was a real, horrible thing. He forgot that John had been a boy before he was a ghost, and that John had had a voice once, and parents, and a home, and all he had now was Rodney, a comic book, and bones under the water, somewhere.

"Right," Rodney said. "Okay. I'm going to go get all my blankets from upstairs, and you're going to find something on TV with a laugh track and maybe stupid pet tricks. We'll install ourselves on the couch and stay there until we wake up in the morning with You Can't Do That On Thaum-o-vision beaming directly into our brains through osmosis, and... somehow things will be better."

John flicked his tongue along his bottom lip, as if he wasn't sure this was a good plan, but when Rodney shooed him he went. The dials on Rodney's mom's old TV were hard for John to manipulate, and if he accidentally stuck a hand into the screen it broke the enchantments that made the picture from the magically-transmitted signal, turning the projection into snow-like static.

When Rodney stumbled downstairs with his arms full – he'd brought a bunch of comics as well, in case they got bored – he found John sitting cross-legged on the coffee table, watching a hemorrhoid potion commercial.

"Ew," Rodney said, repulsed. At least John would never have to worry about relief from anal _itching and burning_ – being dead was good for at least one thing. "Make yourself useful."

He built up the sofa with all the chair cushions and draped the blankets over that, so it made a snug, warm tunnel. He made John wiggle in second, so he could monopolize the back of the sofa; it was good practice for John to change the channel, Rodney rationalized.

By nine Rodney's stomach was growling so loudly that John got up and fetched him a bag of Nilla Wafers, and then a glass of milk. The milk made Rodney remember John's bones, and after he thumped the glass down on the floor he threw his arm around John's waist.

"I wish you were real," he said into the ghostly wisps of John's hair, and burped loudly, and fell asleep like that.

John was still vaguely solid when Rodney was woken by sunlight spilling over his face through the sloppily-shut curtains. The TV was off, and the house was still around him. John had turned around in the night, and his head was on Rodney's shoulder, eyes shut, smiling like he was dreaming, a little goofy. Rodney tried touching him, and thought he could almost feel the hair on John's arm. John's fingers tightened a little on Rodney's back, and his eyes opened to narrow slits.

"You're ticklish," Rodney told him, gleeful at his discovery. John rarely expended the energy to make himself this touchable, and Rodney assumed he'd pay for it later. But Rodney liked getting a sense of what John would have been like, if he were real.

John kept his suspicious look long enough for Rodney to realize how close they were, how easy it would be for John to kiss him again. He wasn't sure he wanted to kiss John, but if John kissed him he might... try it. Maybe he wasn't sure how he felt about John because that first kiss had been, objectively, really bad. He needed more empirical evidence.

But then John rolled away from him, sliding through the blankets to stand right in the sunbeam and stretch so hard he rose up on his toes for a second.

"So what's the plan for today?" Rodney asked, sitting up and twisting to get the kinks out of his back and neck.

John shrugged like he had no idea and didn't really care, going over to peer out the window, as if _anything_ interesting ever happened on their street. The sunlight went straight through John, and all of a sudden Rodney _wanted_ more than anything for John to be alive again. And he was a genius. He hadn't done anything spectacularly magical since the thaumonuclear bomb project; of course, he'd been busy studying, but that was no excuse for laziness.

He could market his research on reanimation as a doctoral thesis, and if he really brought John back to life then Rodney would have not only professional accolades but also John. Rodney needed access to the Academy's Stargate; he needed a really good breakfast to give his brain energy for all the ideas that were percolating.

John waved to get Rodney's attention, and pointed insistently out the window. Rodney got up, in a daze of hard thinking, and looked out to see Jimmy Lee hammering together yet another death-trap of a skateboard ramp.

"Not today," he said absently, and patted his hand through John's shoulder. "Go cook me some eggs. And on second thoughts, not ever. I plan on making you alive again, and you're going to have more respect for me than to risk cracking your skull open. You'll see."

John flicked one finger at the back of Rodney's head, barely a poke, but Rodney protested anyway.

"Ingrate," Rodney called him.

John grinned wide and gave Rodney a thumbs-up, but something in Rodney's expression must have conveyed that he wasn't joking, because John's grin faded until he looked almost terrified.

"I mean," Rodney said, and swallowed. "Obviously I don't know how to do it, but I think I know how to get to a place where I can, or I can find someone who can. Which you probably know, considering the books I've been reading. But," and now he felt guilty for keeping secrets, "when I was at the Academy, when I was taking the exam –" he met John's eyes – "I found the Stargate."

John's face went slack with shock, and then his eyes narrowed, calculating.

Rodney tipped his head in acknowledgment. "We're probably going to have to do several very illegal things," he admitted. "On the bright side, they can't arrest _you_."

John rolled his eyes and then mouthed _awesome_ at Rodney. He made a ring with both his hands and raised his eyebrows, a sarcastic impersonation of being impressed.

"Yeah, well," Rodney said. "That's not all. I also met O.S." And he tried his best to look nonchalant.

*

At school Rodney was smarter than everyone, including his teachers. He always had been, and even though he tried not to become lazy it was hard when he was never really challenged.

Discovering how to operate a Stargate _was_ challenging, which was an unpleasant surprise. Rodney had assumed that whatever he couldn't find out he could figure out, but he ran into dead ends at every promising lead.

"Stargates are top secret," John wrote on the page where they were currently arguing. He was experimenting with ink pens, and not having much success. Rodney thought John had an in-built aversion to water-based inks; John had lazily waved that off, suggesting that was close to crazy principle-of-contagion talk. "The government isn't just going to let anyone leave instructions around so any criminal organization can walk in and turn one on, are you nuts?"

"You have _driven_ me nuts." Rodney pulled away the book that John had flipped through and declared useless. He'd had to use subterfuge to get his mother to request it through inter-library loan. It was an old, musty hardback written by the same Katherine Langford who had discovered the American Stargate; historical record showed that she and Ernest Littlefield had activated the portal, as evidenced by Littlefield's disappearance to the Other Side. Rodney had hoped for a diagram of an activation device, or at least a description of what one had to _do_.

John had been the annoying voice of skepticism all summer, and Rodney had snapped at him countless times. In the very first week of research John had been sloppy and desultory about his work, and when confronted with it said he didn't even know why they were bothering.

"Let me dumb this down for you, then," Rodney had snapped. "Try and use whatever little intelligence you have to follow along." He had slapped his growing tower of notes on his desk. "You're going to want to get very familiar with OSE. Short for Other Side Events," he told John, who had rolled his eyes and flipped through the uppermost notebook until he found Rodney's bad sketch of Turtle Theory. "Current thaumatological theory says there are an infinite number of Other Sides, and magic travels on possibly-predictable paths between them. Although," he added as John frowned and ran a finger over the numerological formulae, "because all things are theoretically possible and therefore must be true somewhere, some Other Sides may have no magic and some might be entirely comprised of magic. Other Sides capable of supporting life as we know it are probably pretty rare. Which means," he said in a louder voice, because John was paying more attention to the numbers than to him, "theoretically we can find a world where you're not dead." John's eyes snapped to his. "Well. Where being dead doesn't mean you're limited to manifesting like... this." Rodney waved a hand, all-encompassing. "Your physical body died, but your magical body survived, apparently through an illogical thaumatological bond with Batman. So if we can take you to an Other Side which is _more_ magical, I predict you'll be more... you."

John had clapped, in slow sarcastic silence, his mouth twisted to hold back an emotion that anyone else might have read as anger. But Rodney knew John, knew how much he must be frustrated by his limitations and terrified of being immaterial _forever_.

"Plus on the Other Side there are supposed to be really good magicians," Rodney had admitted, giving John a wry quirk of a smile. "Better than me, at any rate. I'm willing to admit that if you admit you'd really rather not be dead any more."

John had shrugged and then offered Rodney his hand, palm up, like they were making a pact.

Rodney had shaken, feeling weird being formal like that with John, but it also somehow made the project more real.

And so here they were, a month later, and no closer to finding out how to activate the Stargate.

"No one's going to write it down for you to stumble over," John wrote. "Plan B."

Rodney pulled at his hair. "If I had a Plan B, believe me, we'd be implementing it right now, if only to get you to shut up."

"Okay," John wrote. The spikes of his handwriting were especially sharp with annoyance. "Fine, then. This is me, shutting up." He bit his lip, and added, "I'm going to try something, I'll be back in a few days."

And he disappeared, leaving Rodney with nothing to do but keep reading, think about what an idiot John was, and worry. He had purposefully _not_ put John's ghost powers on their list of options because the idea of John walking into the Academy or the Stargate facility in Colorado made Rodney dizzy with fear of all the things that could go wrong. There were any number of sensational paperbacks about creeping horrors and godlike madmen who came through the Stargate to subjugate / devour mankind, and Rodney suspected that there was a grain of truth to the stories, although the truth was probably more prosaic. It seemed plausible enough that Rodney was certain a decent security system would be able to detect John's presence. Rodney had gone to see Ghostbusters without John, and the entrapment equipment they used gave Rodney nightmares.

So Rodney worried for the next three days, and yelled at John when he reappeared, empty handed and so waveringly translucent that he was nearly invisible. John didn't answer any of Rodney's questions, just curled up in a ball of spectral misery on the bed.

"I just don't want to have you wind up in some basement lab being experimented on," Rodney said awkwardly. He stood by his _I told you it was a stupid idea that wouldn't work_ , but he could have been less vehement, he supposed. 

John lifted one hand off the quilt to acknowledge he'd heard, but dropped it back down as if he didn't have enough energy for anything more.

"You'll feel better in the morning," Rodney suggested. He tried to pat John's shoulder, but ended up with his fingers dipping into John's neck. "Sorry," Rodney said, pulling his hand back, but John had his eyes closed and was recharging or hibernating or whatever it was that ghosts did instead of sleeping.

In the morning John was still listless, but he also had a secret buoyant smugness that manifested in self-satisfied smirks and eyebrows arched condescendingly whenever Rodney tried to cheer him up.

Rodney discovered what John's irritating attitude was about the following Wednesday, when he received a manilla envelope and a badly-taped package. Both were postmarked Colorado, and his address was written in John's familiar handwriting.

"You're a real asshole," Rodney told John, daring to say it loudly right in the front room because his mother was still at work. "Don't you ever, ever take risks like that again."

John bounced a little on the balls of his feet. His movements were light, probably because he was still mostly insubstantial. He held out his hands, and mimed ripping the parcel open like the Hulk.

Rodney had his suspicions, but he was still impressed by the envelope full of stolen documents and the odd boxy hand-held device protected by toilet paper inside the package. The device reminded Rodney of a cable box. Each button, instead of representing a channel, was subtly wedge-shaped and marked with a stylized constellation; as far as he could tell, neither Ursa Major nor Ursa Minor was represented, and Rodney filed those in his head as a set of confirmed and potential passwords. Despite himself Rodney was impressed with John's dedication.

"Did you try this out? Can it actually make the Stargate open up a portal?"

John squinted at Rodney as if he had trouble believing anyone could be so stupid. Rodney rolled his eyes.

"Okay, right, that might have been hard to explain."

John held up his fingers a centimeter apart: _Just a little_.

"I figured out how to break into the Academy," Rodney said, feeling the need to assert dominance over the conversation. John flickered and was suddenly dressed all in black, with heavy-looking leather punk boots. "Yes, except no one can _see_ you, you _poser_ ," Rodney reminded him.

John tipped his hand, _maybe-maybe not_. 

"You'll have to go back into your comic book," Rodney told him. "That's how you got here, across the border and everything. Plus a comic's easy to hide and lightweight." John shrugged, like the point wasn't even worth mentioning. "And then," Rodney went on, and grabbed the pen next to the phone to draw diagrams and maps on the back of the envelope.

"No. Way," John mouthed, and then set his lips in a firm line.

"Way. Show me a better plan," Rodney said, and sat back, arms crossed over his chest. "You're not the only one who can take a risk." He leaned back on the sofa and looked at John wide-eyed, his entire pose conveying his eagerness to hear John's ideas.

"Two days," John scrawled at the bottom of the envelope, under the list Rodney had started of things he'd need to bring to the Other Side. "Need to think," and the pen slipped through his fingers and refused to be picked up.

"I can't believe you carried this thing all the way from some maximum-security facility to the post office," Rodney said, and picked up the device with one hand, weighing it. Less hefty than his backpack usually was, it still would have been a challenge for John. "You didn't drop it, did you?"

John glared. Rodney checked the device's housing for suspicious dents or scrapes. He didn't know what it was made of; a metal from the Other Side, he supposed. It felt like it was resonating beneath his fingertips, like a struck bell. Pretty awesome.

Two days later, John caved and started practicing haunting: diving into his Batman comic, popping back into the room, and then disappearing again. Rodney felt unnerved watching him, and John looked strained, like he was exercising hard.

Two weeks later, once the plan had been polished to the point where Rodney assumed they were prepared for most contingencies, Rodney left a note on his desk for his mother telling her he was going to go queue up to buy a new game console and would be back in a few days.

Getting into the Academy was easy. He'd spent the money he'd been saving for a game console on a ticket to see a string quartet in the Bardic Hall. Rodney enjoyed the performance, even though he felt a little guilty knowing that John was stifled in his backpack, pressed between two pieces of acid-free cardboard. Rodney was also carrying five Crunchie bars, a Thermos full of grape soda, a multi-tool, and the device. He knew that most missions to the Other Side were to establish trade relations, but he hoped that someone there would take a humanitarian – Other Sidian? – view of John's problem and help them out for free.

When the concert ended, Rodney separated from the crowd and moved into the shadows, hiding his hair under a baseball cap. When he was certain no one was watching, he worked his way over to the dome, keeping to the sides of buildings and close to hedges.

Rodney knew that impatience would screw their plan up, so he found a shrubbery with a good view of the dome and settled in. He waited until practically the Witching hour, timing the security guard's rounds and keeping an eye out for dogs or cameras or anything uncanny. The plan made provisions for being caught when they re-emerged from the Other Side: John assured Rodney that once he was in his proper body and could tell people who he was, the Academy would shower Rodney with glory.

Rodney had accused John of hyperbole. _Nope_ , John had scribbled cheerfully in Rodney's notebook. _~Shower~_ He sketched a quick cartoon of Rodney in a fur cape and enormous crown with money bags at his feet.

Rodney thought about glory and grant funding and advanced degrees and his own private thaumatology lab, complete with minions and coffee maker, and crept out of hiding, moving cautiously towards the dome. The trick to infiltration, John had told him, was believing you already belonged in the place you wanted to be.

"And _you_ just happen to believe that you belong in the Batcave," Rodney had said, dripping heavy sarcasm, but John had shrugged and disappeared. Rodney finally found him on page eight, draped seductively over the Batmobile, one hand caressing the sleek lines of the hood.

Rodney knew, had always known, that he was brilliant and destined for greatness. He was the future of magic. More than anyone else, he _belonged_. 

He blocked the flashing lights with his body as he pressed the code against the soft resistance of the dome. When the blue light glowed he let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, tapped it, and scurried inside the instant the doorway opened.

Rodney couldn't be certain he wasn't triggering alarms somewhere, so instead of waiting he ran for the Stargate and the dias. He just needed five minutes. Maybe not even that, he thought, running past the pillars and then some weird ancient-looking machines that had an Other-Side-y sleekness to them, as if they'd been conjured entirely out of magic.

Time to explore those when he returned, all showered in glory, he told himself.

The Academy Stargate was not, as far as he knew, as large or as powerful as the American one in Colorado – he'd have to ask John – but it was still huge, made out of something that was both stone and the same kind of metal as the stolen device. Touching it, he found it disturbingly warm to the touch. The hole in the center was nearly three meters in diameter, and the outer ring was actually _two_ , nested together and carved with star-symbols that were identical to the ones on the device, except imbued with a powerful aura of magic.

The Stargate was beyond cool.

Rodney pulled out the John's comic, and as arranged, John appeared as soon as the plastic was open, stretching his arms and legs and cracking his neck as he looked around. John was grinning, and his hair was fluffy like it was full of static. Rodney nearly started to enter symbols on the device from memory, but then was struck by a horrible fear of doing it wrong and ending up somewhere terrifying. The papers John had stolen listed Other Side addresses for American allies, and Rodney figured they would be safe for a Canadian as well. He'd discussed the various locations with John, but they'd decided on _The Lost City of Atlantis_. It sounded cool, better than Hoth or Manara, and Rodney thought they'd have better luck finding what they needed in a metropolis. Even if it was, apparently, mislaid.

Rodney dug the right page out of his bag and made John hold it so he could check and double-check as he pressed the buttons. Each button activated one of the panels on the ring, and John made Rodney climb down off the dias, herding him behind a console as the Gate's inner ring began rotating, the decorative chevrons on the other ring clicked into place while all the stars lit up blue. When Rodney entered the last sequence, the gate clanged to a stop, and a film of pure magic filled the ring, rushing out at them like a wave hitting shore before falling back to form a shimmering veil.

John grabbed Rodney's arm as hard as he could – not a bad grip, all that working out with pencils paid off – and gestured wildly, taking a step forward.

"Together or not at all," Rodney insisted, sticking the comic and the device back into his bag one-handed, nearly amputating his finger with the zipper in his haste. "You know we haven't found any studies about what might happen to a ghost on the Other Side."

John leaned close, pointing to Rodney and then scribbling notes on the air.

"If this works, damn right I'll be publishing our findings," Rodney said. "On three, then."

John took a breath, his chest rising and falling as if he really had sucked a deep breath in. He was really _good_ at pretending to be alive, and Rodney wanted him never to have to pretend again ever.

"One," Rodney said, and took a step forward. "Two. _Three_."

He felt John's fingers on him until they stepped into the shimmer of magic, and then he felt nothing at all.


	2. Able to Fly

The sun on the Other Side was incredibly bright. Rodney was briefly annoyed with himself for assuming that they'd arrive in the night, but a quick squint around the area surrounding the Stargate showed that there was nothing to fear. The Gate stood on a platform made of squarish stone blocks that was about half a meter high. The platform was in a meadow, awash with red and gold flowers which Rodney was probably going to be allergic to. There were huge white butterflies dancing on the warm breeze, and no people at all.

Except for John, of course, and Rodney lost all interest in their surroundings when he turned to give John a triumphant grin.

John was casting a shadow, and his hair was being lifted by the wind, and he was touching himself gingerly, poking at his elbows and nose and chest, rubbing the shadow of whiskers on his chin. The expression on his face was one Rodney had never seen before, and he wasn't... Rodney knew what John looked like when he was happy, and this was nothing like that; it was disbelief and fear mixed in with joy, and a lot like the way Rodney's mother looked just before she cried.

Rodney had never seen John cry, but John had never been _able_ to cry.

"So I guess that worked," Rodney said, feeling a bit helpless. John stared at him, and Rodney hurried to fill the space between them with words. "I told you it would. You should check and see if you're able to do magic. Theoretically, you should be closer in magical ability to the local people here than back home. Try to manipulate something small with your thoughts."

John took a deep breath – Rodney was glad he hadn't forgotten how to breathe – and in a wave out from the gate platform, the red flowers were suddenly a deep, vivid purple. The butterflies danced up into the air like a cloud, alarmed.

"One," John said, and coughed. "I was trying... it's supposed to be just one."

Rodney would _never_ have guessed that John's voice sounded like this, nasal and whiny. He always thought of John as suave, somehow; in retrospect, that was probably just because of John's trendy clothes and because he was a _ghost_. Ghosts were supposed to be pretty cool. Just Rodney's luck that he ended up with a dorky one.

"Maybe you could try less hard," Rodney suggested dryly. "Over-compensation much?"

"Lost time," John said, with an annoyed twist to his mouth. He glared at the flowers, and their natural color reluctantly returned. "I haven't... not in years."

Rodney had kind of hoped John wouldn't still be censored by his curse on the Other Side. He wanted to know how old John was, what his full name was, where he was from. He didn't like unsolvable mysteries; they irritated him like unscratchable itches.

"It does prove that you have magical ability," Rodney said, dismissive. He'd picked one flower and thought _pink_ hard at it, and it hadn't changed at all. Another flower refused to turn blue, so Rodney decided that thinking at flowers was puerile, in self-defense. "Congratulations. See if you can use it to find the –" he made quotes in the air "-- _lost city of Atlantis_. We need to talk to someone in charge, and quickly, and I'm not sure why we didn't arrive in the city. It's supposed to be nearly as big as Toronto and built entirely of glass. How do you lose a city that big? We'll have to go back fairly soon," he added. "I'm not sure if the rumor that eating food here traps you forever is true, but I'm not about to test it."

"You've got Crunchie bars in your bag," John pointed out. He frowned so hard that his nose wrinkled. He turned in a slow arc, finally stopping with a comical look of surprise, facing a low glow beyond the scraggly woodland to the south. Rodney had the eerie suspicion that the glow hadn't started up until John started looking. "Something big and magic's over there," John said slowly. "I can... kind of feel it. But, I think? It can feel me back."

Rodney shivered. "Right," he said, and jumped down off the platform. "The Gate's probably monitored as well, and we don't want to be out here all alone and get... found."

John hopped down and gave Rodney a sidelong look, mixed irritation and fondness. "I don't think it's bad," he said, waving his hand casually in the direction they were now walking. "It just feels... familiar."

"Honey trap," Rodney suggested. "Like that documentary we watched about the British kids who found a Gate to the Other Side in a closet. Lure you in and then – wham. Special Forces are being called in for an extraction."

"I'm pretty sure those kids escaped all by themselves," John said. They'd reached the edge of the meadow, and the shade of the trees made Rodney blink hard until his eyes adjusted to the darkness. "There's a path," John said, pointing. "With cobblestones."

"I hate walking," Rodney said, squinting into the gloom, and then hurrying to catch up to John. "We should have brought my bike."

John gave him a look over his shoulder. "The bike you refuse to let me touch?"

"Under some circumstances, hazardous flying has to be better than walking through forests full of, of monsters or enchantresses or houses on chicken legs. Let me know if you see any of those," he added.

John rolled his eyes skyward in exasperation, which Rodney found weirdly comforting. John's gestures and body language were familiar after years as nearly the entirety of their friendship; if John was relaxed enough to be falling back into habit, then Rodney figured he might be getting used to the strangeness of being alive again. For certain values of _alive_.

"Yeah," John dragged out with slow mockery. "Chicken houses. And ones made out of candy and cookies."

"Shut up." Rodney glanced around reflexively. "Mister _Whoops_ Purple Flowers Everywhere. I have no idea what the limits are on what you can do here."

"Huh," John said. "Do you think I can make people appear?"

"Are you not _listening_ to me?" Rodney demanded, and walked right into John's back. John put out one hand to steady Rodney, and for a moment they both froze at the contact, John's fingers clenching tighter than was necessary. Rodney wished he could see John's face to reassure himself that the almost-crying look wasn't back again, but John was staring down the path...

...where a woman in leather pants and a halter top was standing watching them, calmly, chin raised and hand holding a set of wands at casual readiness.

"Tell me you weren't thinking about Catwoman," Rodney hissed at John. "I can't take you _anywhere_."

"Hey," John whispered back, sounding indignant. He raised his free hand like he was going to do the whole _we come in peace_ routine. "Hi," John called. Rodney had never thought about it before, but now that he could hear John's voice, there was no escaping the fact that he was very American. "We're looking for Atlantis, you wouldn't happen to know if this is the right road?"

The woman took two steps toward them, and was suddenly standing just out of arm's reach. Rodney felt John stiffen, turning so that he was standing between Rodney and the woman. Close up, Rodney realized that she didn't look much older than they were.

"I am Teyla Emmagan, daughter of Tagan," she said, very solemnly, as if everyone knew who Tagan was. Maybe everyone here did.

"Um," John said, and Rodney hadn't thought through how awkward his curse was going to prove in social situations. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "This is Rodney McKay. From Toronto. He likes bicycles, sugar cereal, and cats."

Rodney leaned around John to smile a stiff acknowledgment of that terrible introduction. "And he's John and he likes playing the lute and driving me nuts." He shrugged and smiled away John's glare. "Where we come from, people introduce each other," he added. "We're not just being weird."

Teyla smiled, socially polite, as if she didn't believe a word of it. "And what is your business in Atlantis?"

Rodney swallowed. He didn't know if Teyla had been raised with prejudices against the walking dead or not.

"I was," John said, and bit his lip. "I got hurt. Rodney thinks maybe someone here can make me better."

"No roads lead to the city. It's in the center of the ocean." Teyla studied them, her eyebrows indicating that she was skeptical of strangers who didn't even know that simple fact. "There are no Ancestors living there now. They fled when the Wraith came, or they were eaten, and they left all the peoples here defenseless."

"Eaten," Rodney echoed. He looked at John, trying to telegraph _let's run away_ with his eyes, but John's jaw was set, and he tipped his head towards Teyla as if his hero complex had just kicked in big time. As if he hadn't noticed that Teyla was carrying industrial-size magic wands and could probably defeat the Wraith six times before dinner.

"Come and have tea with my people," Teyla said, and smiled graciously. Rodney just bet this was less of an invitation than a demand. "We will take you there."

He was about to ask who she meant when three figures moved silently out of the shadows, all armed with knives and wands. The two men were huge, and the woman had long blond ringlets and a glare which suggested she'd enjoy grinding Rodney under her heel like a roach.

Teyla repressed a smirk. "Our warriors come from many nations. Sora of the Genii, Sateda's Ronon Dex, and Halling, an Athosian, like me." She raised an eyebrow at Rodney. "Was that done properly in the way of your people?"

"You sound totally Canadian," Rodney told her, deadpan. "Where I come from, warriors suggest, you know, a war."

"We're taking back the City of the Ancestors," Halling said. He sounded as if he was orating, and coughed, looking a little self-conscious.

"Breaking the spine of the Wraith invasion," Sora added. Her hand hadn't moved off her knife hilt, and her expression just _dared_ Rodney to step out of line.

"Let's go have that tea," John said. "I love a good cup of tea. And maybe you can explain what a Wraith is, because where we come from, we don't have any."

"You're blessed, then," Teyla said, waving a hand to indicate that they should walk on together.

*

Teyla assured Rodney that a few cups of tea would not compel him to remain on the Other Side forever, and they'd help calm his stomach. He'd hurled twice after listening to Teyla talk about how the Wraith had awoken from their long enchantment and Ronon tersely summarize how his entire country had been murdered, the Wraith sucking away the life forces of nearly every man, woman, and child.

John had looked just as ill, but he hadn't eaten in five years; there was nothing for him to throw up.

They'd both been given warm woven blankets to wrap up in while they sipped their tea, and Teyla's grandmother Charin sat them down on a bench outside her tent in the encampment, near the fire.

"This doesn't look much like an army," Rodney said, after they'd been sitting so long that Charin had nearly finished mending the heels on a pair of socks. Children ran all over the camp, flinging drying powder haphazardly over the laundry strung on lines between trees; goats and beige-spotted unicorns grazed placidly on the central grassy square. Rodney had spotted a few three-legged crows in the trees as well. It felt more like a fairy tale than a war.

Charin gave him a level glance. "It's what's left of our army," she said, hands stilling. "This is our last chance. If we Athosians fail, then the Wraith will control all the land from here to Manara. Perhaps the Genii will be able to hold them back, but we will not see that day." She gave Rodney a small smile. "Tagan and Torren would have been proud to see their daughter lead her people in bravery and not cower from the enemy."

"Why not just let them have the city?" Rodney asked. "Why not get as far away as you can?"

Charin let her gaze slide meaningfully from Rodney to John, who was hunched up, cradling his teacup in both hands. " _Wraith are never-ending_ ," she said. "More pragmatically... the Wraith have killed so many that I loved, and stolen every home I've made. I must fight, even if it means I will die, because if I do not, then what have I lived for?"

Horribly, this made John sit up straight and raise his chin, like he'd been seduced and recruited into this terrible Other Side war.

Rodney was all set to point out the many, many ways in which John's murderers were not the Wraith, and how he respected John for not being consumed by a need for revenge. And then he thought about a wave of black-robed, white-haired monsters, standing taller than Ronon or Halling, snatching up each of the children in the camp, one after another, and doing to them what had been done to John.

He wasn't sure he could live with himself knowing he'd let that happen.

"We're not especially magical," Rodney said slowly. "Not compared to your people, probably. But we have been able to make things fly. Wheeled... carts? Wagons? Would that help?"

Charin put down her knitting with slow deliberation. "Teyla will be very pleased to hear that," she said, and stood, gesturing for them to follow as she wove her way towards the command tent.

A group of Teyla's allies, it turned out, had recently discovered a crashed and abandoned _chariot of the Ancestors_. The name made Rodney wince, and John, walking around the quote-unquote chariot, said it looked more like a city bus.

"They can fly through the Ring of the Ancestors," Teyla told him, quellingly. "The city's evacuation used these. We saw them gliding overhead, leaving us behind." She patted the sun-warmed metal of the ship's side, just above a deeply scorched weal. "The Wraith also have sky-chariots, shaped like daggers, that they use to steal people from their homes and towns."

"Spaceships," Rodney corrected, because _sky-chariots_ wounded his very soul, and he was still fond of Star Trek, despite its multiple thaumatological inaccuracies. When John opened his mouth to argue he amended it to, "Stargate-ships. Ringships. It looks like a ringship to me."

"More like the tiny airplanes on the lake where..." John's voice trailed off, and Rodney saw his fingers curl into fists. "We called them puddlejumpers," he said with slow, stubborn effort. "Little planes, hopping from lake to lake."

Teyla eyed him with curiosity, and Rodney crossed his arms, nervous that she'd ask John a question he couldn't answer. He was all set to launch into an explanation of what planes were, and their complex magical engineering , but she just nodded and brought them back to the subject at hand.

"Whatever it is called," she said, allowing a thread of impatience to enter her voice, "can you make it work?"

"Sure," John said, at the same time as Rodney muttered, "Maybe."

"Piece of cake," John insisted, and strolled up the ramp at the back as if he had any idea of what he was doing.

Rodney hurried after him, because _he_ was the one who'd actually attended hands-on practicums. Everything John knew came from books and his own over-active imagination, and Rodney could see right from the start that John'd be the one making promises and it'd be Rodney who had to do all the work.

He was explaining to John that he would not put up with being ordered around, when John stopped looking at all the mysterious Other Side things strapped to the inside walls and dropped down into one of the pilot's seats at the front.

"You shouldn't – " Rodney started. And then lights turned on all around them, soft glows of amber and blue, the front glass becoming a projection of diagnostic schematics.

"Cool," John said with deep appreciation, stroking one hand along the front control panel.

"John," Teyla called, and Rodney half-turned to look back to where she was standing at the top of the ramp, wide-eyed. "You are one of the Ancestors?"

John shook his head empathetically. "No. I'm – this is new to me. I'm just... ask Rodney how ordinary I am. I can't... back home, I'm not magical at all. No talent."

Teyla walked forward to trace the symbols on the display with a finger. Beneath her fingertip, yellow light danced and flowed. "The Ancestors do not study magic, they are born with it, or from it. To them it is as natural as breathing air."

John's pleasure at the ship's response drained from his face, and Rodney sensed that they were thinking the same thing. That for John, even breathing was not something that came naturally, anymore. And that John possessing powerful, inherited Other-Side magic was a much better reason for wanting him dead than him liking boys.

Rodney reached out, putting his hand on John's tense shoulder and rubbing. He felt John shudder, and realized that this was the first time he'd touched John intentionally since they'd arrived here – since he'd been able to – and he really could do a better job of it. He'd had plenty of practice hugging Jeannie, so he stepped closer and bent to fold John into a hug.

Despite the awkward angle and the way his back twisted, it was good to feel John, solid and impermeable under his hands. John's hair was soft against the side of his face, and his neck smelled like sweat, which was... real. John had never had a scent before. After a long moment, in which Rodney gradually began to feel like he'd breached some kind of friendship etiquette, John reached up with both hands and wrapped them around Rodney's back so tightly Rodney huffed involuntarily in surprise.

"This is dumb," John said, low and embarrassed-sounding, but his fingers traced the bumps of Rodney's spine like he was learning him by touch. "I'm okay."

"You really are," Rodney told him, patting John's shoulder and hoping his sympathy didn't seem fake or, worse, condescending. "This is kind of weird?"

John coughed, or laughed, Rodney wasn't sure; a short rough noise, cut off. "One word for it. But... I could get used to this," he admitted, and Rodney knew what he wasn't saying was how much it would hurt if they didn't find any answers and had to go back; if John lost his voice, his body, the strange magical control he had over technology that should be alien to him. "Glad we came, though."

"Wouldn't have missed it for the world," Rodney told him, and stepped back, feeling the loss of John's warmth acutely. But Teyla was faking an intense interest in the things hanging from the walls, and Rodney didn't want to spend too much time thinking about all that could go wrong. "So do you think this shoebox can fly?" The segue was heavy-handed and sounded like he was quoting The A-Team, and Rodney winced.

"He didn't mean it," John said quickly, with a reproachful glare at Rodney, and rubbed his palm over the thing that looked like a video game controller. "This chariot – "

"Ringship," Rodney corrected, firmly.

"Ringship," John repeated, rolling his eyes. "It wants to fly, can't you feel it?" He peered at the display and touched a few levers. "It feels like magic to _me_ ," he added, sounding defensive.

In response, the door at the back slid shut, and the ringship slipped lightly up into the air, like a released balloon. It felt the way Rodney had always imagined a flying carpet would, except without the rush of wind on his face; better even than the flying bicycle, which had needed frantic pedaling and dare-devil steering. He grinned, despite the alarming way the ringship was now level with the treetops.

"We might be seen," Teyla said, very softly. "John. We need to go down."

"Yeah." John dragged the word out with slow regret, and the ringship floated lightly back to rest on the grass.

"You must be one of the Ancestors." Teyla crossed her arms and met John's startled look with narrowed eyes. "And you did not wish me to know?"

" _He_ didn't know," Rodney said, because he wasn't sure John could say enough to defend himself. "He was born and raised on Our Side, and... bad people hurt him, there, so he couldn't do magic. We had _no idea_ about your people or the Wraith or the Ancestors. I just brought John here because I wanted him to – " he realized he couldn't finish that sentence " – be happy."

"I think this puddlejumper has weapons and maybe invisibility enchantments," John said. Probably Teyla couldn't see how embarrassed John looked by the whole discussion of his Ancestry, but Rodney recognized this conversational gambit as a desperate attempt to deflect attention away from himself. "They're kind of... broken?" He looked hopefully at Rodney. "Can an enchantment be broken?"

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Duh."

"How soon can it be repaired?" Teyla asked. She looked first at John, who shrugged his ignorance at her apologetically, and then at Rodney. "We're planning a surprise attack at dawn."

"Anywhere from a few hours to never," Rodney said, and flapped his hand at John to get out of the pilot's seat. John didn't budge, but he did point out things on the display screen, like he was actually being helpful or something. Rodney didn't understand the writing, but the numerology made sense to him. John fiddled with something, and the schematic color-coded itself, with all the damage lighting up in hot pink.

"Supposed to be red," John muttered, slouching. "Fixable?"

Rodney sighed and looked at Teyla. "Give me four hours, a good dinner, and whatever crystals of power you have." He hated crystals – they were such flaky New Age magic, but it looked like the ringship was attuned to crystal vibrations. John snorted a laugh at Rodney's expense.

"Shall I fetch you a pointy hat as well?" Teyla asked, and her very solemnity told Rodney that she was laughing at him, too.

*

The final adjustments to the ringship were made after sunset, by the unsteady light of crystal clusters encased tightly in glass bottles.

"They contain malevolent spirits which murder the people you love in their dreams," Teyla explained, when Rodney wondered aloud if he could take one home. She jiggled the bottle in her hand. "But they are pretty."

Rodney stayed far away from the lanterns after that, and was glad when Ronon showed him the nice, safe, dark tent where he and John would be staying the night.

Rodney slept like a baby, and John... slept disturbingly like the dead, which was to say, not at all, as far as Rodney could tell. John woke Rodney up by shaking his shoulder hard, and pressed a mug of hot sweet tea into Rodney's hands. Outside the tent the sky was dark, with a few alien stars peering through the cloud cover. A cold wind rustled through the trees and sounded really creepy, and Rodney clutched the mug tightly, so the steam rose to his face and made him a tiny bit warmer.

"Teyla gave me this to give to you," John said, and dropped a thick bundle of clothing in Rodney's lap. "And you need to see Ronon to get some weapons." John, Rodney realized, was wearing an Other Side hand-me-down coat of his own, leather and cropped short, with the widest collar this side of the 70s. John did a quick run-through of his many new pockets, showing Rodney a knife, another knife, a big knife, a dagger, and some kind of solid wooden wand in a holster tied on with leather straps. "Cool, huh?"

"No," Rodney muttered. "I feel sick again."

John handed him a Crunchie bar. "Teyla laughed when I asked her if you'd be trapped here forever if you ate her soup, but... it smelled kind of burned, and Sora made this face behind Teyla's back, so I figured you'd rather have chocolate. And whatever that yellow crunchy stuff inside is."

"It's a solid chunk of sugar," Rodney informed him, and took a healthy bite. "Sugar's brain food." He didn't ask John if he'd eaten; he didn't want to think about the implications if John hadn't needed food in the same way he hadn't needed sleep.

"The puddlejumper's all packed," John said, suddenly looking nervous. "Ronon and Teyla and I practiced making it go up and down and around in circles. I kind of have the hang of flying." He gave Rodney a self-conscious shrug. "Last time I steered something was, a, a – " John took a breath – "a rowboat."

"And my bicycle," Rodney said, even though that was a lie. He'd been the one steering badly; John'd been hanging on behind him, whooping silently in glee. "Did you crash the boat?"

John shook his head, and cleared his throat. "Can't swim," he said succinctly. The terseness of the bitten-off words suggested that he didn't want to. Given what he knew about John's history with water, Rodney didn't blame him. "There's a control tower in the center of the city," John said, the tension in his shoulders easing as he changed the subject. "Atlantis's a lot like Toronto, I guess. At the top of the tower is a parking lot for jumpers. I think." He took Rodney's empty mug and stood, offering his free hand to Rodney. Rodney took it and was pulled efficiently to his feet. "There are six boats of warriors who are going to surround the city, and if we can take over the tower it'll be easier. Or something." He leaned in a little. "Teyla knows this stuff. You should listen to her."

"I'll listen to anyone who keeps me from getting killed," Rodney said darkly. He liked a good escapist novel; he'd never especially wanted to live in one. He had no desire to be shot full of arrows or cursed, like always happened in Fantastic Tales of the Other Side, or be sucked dry of life before he was legally allowed to buy beer.

"Not going to let anything happen to you," John said, still hanging on possessively as they ducked outside and headed towards Ronon's tent. "You're safe with me, Rodney."

Rodney would have protested, but the sound of John calling him by name made him feel weightless and full of ineffable emotion. He kept silent, and followed.

*

When the time came to leave, Rodney was bored and halfway through his second Crunchie bar. John, Ronon, Teyla, and Rodney squeezed into the tiny forward cabin, and a team of fifteen soldiers under Sora's command filed into the back in rows, to sit on the uncomfortable benches or on the floor. John closed the rear hatch and the ringship floated up, moving lightly even with so much weight. John had a map up on the display, and aimed the tiny rectangle of the ship out over the Great Lake towards the glowing blue snowflake that Teyla insisted was the city of Atlantis.

To distract himself from thinking about crashing, drowning, and warfare, Rodney peppered Teyla with questions about her people and the trade they did with people from His Side. She was a respected leader of her people and put up a front of being unflappable, but after a while Rodney could tell he was getting on her nerves.

"I don't recall. Much time has passed since people from Your Side sought the City of the Ancestors," Teyla said when he asked what countries people had come from. She stared pensively out over the waters that stretched like a dark mirror beneath them, and silently conveyed the impression that if she were less composed, she'd be wishing that _some_ people from His Side should have stayed there.

"Seriously?" Rodney asked, voice squeaky with agitation. "Has it been that long? Or does time pass at a different rate here? Are we going to go home and find my baby sister's a grandmother?" He eyed Teyla. "Are you going to hand me a box full of my lost years and tell me not to open it, which of course will mean that I'll _have_ to open it or die of curiosity. And then I'll be old."

Ronon grinned at him, cuttingly sharp and not very friendly. "She's having you on. Your people came here a lot, until the Wraith invaded."

"It has felt like ages," Teyla said darkly. "We had trade agreements for education and industry. We needed allies in times of darkness as well as in light. And after all our time alone, they send us," she spread her hands, "two boys."

John coughed. "We aren't here officially."

"At all," Rodney clarified. "I'm a student, he's... whatever, we only found out about the Stargate by accident, and we weren't supposed to use it."

"But we're glad to help," John said, looking away from the front window to give Ronon and Teyla a nod. "Rodney's pretty smart; anything you want, he can figure it out for you."

Ronon snorted. "We figure things out for ourselves, thanks."

Rodney could not _believe_ that John actually looked disappointed, almost as if... well, okay, yes, John probably _did_ want to stay here and not go back, even if that meant getting caught up in some never-ending war.

"I believe that the Ancestors sent you to us in our time of need," Teyla said. Rodney had to hand it to her, he couldn't tell whether her serenity was sincere or not, but it was a kind thing to say to John. Very diplomatic.

"That's the city," Ronon said, jerking his chin towards the window, and they all leaned forward.

Atlantis was hard to miss. It was made up of spires which were lit from the inside with a soft, beckoning glow. The colors shifted as Rodney squinted, blue and yellow and pink, like sunset colors painted on clouds, and he absolutely blamed the pervasive magical aura emanating from the city for the way his brain cluttered up with poetry and metaphors.

"Cool," John said, and Ronon smirked behind his mustache and said _Yeah_ , slapping John on the shoulder like they were fraternal brothers in some mystical order of monosyllabic manly stoicism.

Rodney half wanted to tell Ronon to keep his hands to himself, but he also wondered – had been wondering – if John would have chosen him if there'd been any choice besides Rodney. A mutual fondness for comic books and troublemaking maybe wasn't all John wanted in a friend. Maybe he wanted someone like Ronon, who was handsome and had taught them how to fire red bolts of annihilation from their wands with casual competence. Or someone like Teyla, who had an enviable way with words and leadership. Or Sora – maybe John liked people who were bitter and sarcastic and vengeful. Until now, John hadn't had other opportunities.

And if the city of Atlantis did hold the secret to bringing John back to life, really and truly, John's life would be nothing but opportunities. Rodney shouldn't hold him back. But he wanted to.

So he thought about the city instead. As the ringship streaked towards it, low over the water to avoid detection, the city grew until it nearly blocked out the sky. Teyla had said that the city floated on the water like a bubble, held up by Ancestral magic. She said that before the Wraith, delegations of local people were allowed to visit the city, to study in the Hall of Tomes or to see the healers. Halling had visited as a boy, Teyla said, and Rodney wondered how he felt now, waiting in a boat for the attack to begin.

When the ringship was near enough that Rodney started nervously calculating how fast they'd be traveling when they smashed face-first into one of the outlying piers, John pulled the controls back, easy and steady. The ship shot skyward, skimming up the side of a tower with such speed that if the inertia-dampening enchantments gave out they'd all be crushed instantly to jelly. Ronon and Teyla didn't say anything, but Rodney heard the soldiers at the back raise their voices in alarm.

Once the ship crested the first tower John directed it up towards the top of the tall central tower. As they approached the sharp peak of the tower roof the ringship switched to automatic navigation, gliding toward a panel that twisted open to reveal a narrow channel. The ringship dropped straight down, alerts and alarms dinging one after another. John poked at various things, looking like he knew what he was doing, but Rodney really doubted that. He just hoped John didn't turn the automatic systems off and kill them all.

The ringship floated down onto the platform at the bottom and came to a rest with barely a clang. John leaned back in his chair and grinned wide – probably relieved, Rodney suspected, more than cocky.

"You will stay here," Teyla told them, standing and taking out her wands. "Neither of you is a fighter, and John, you are the pilot; you must keep yourself safe." John looked instantly annoyed, and Rodney had to hold back a grin of his own. "You may kill any Wraith who approach," Teyla told them in placation. "Your wands are powerful, but you will need many more annihilation charms than would kill a man. The Wraith are... powerful."

John made a face. "Good for them."

Ronon took out a dagger and flipped it into the air, catching the hilt with a sweep of his hand. "They heal fast, but that won't help if you decapitate them. Or cut their hearts out."

"Ew." Rodney wrinkled his nose at the mental image.

"Whatever happens," Teyla said, acknowledging a signal from Sora with a sharp nod. "Do not let them get their hands on you." She leaned down to rest her forehead against Rodney's for a moment, and then repeated the gesture with John. It was far more intimate than a handshake, and Rodney felt a bubble of panic at the thought that Teyla was saying a formal, final goodbye. Just in case. "Open the door," she told John. "And wait for us to return."

John did so, and he and Rodney watched as Sora's team moved silently through the doors into the bright corridor beyond, and out of view.

"This sucks," John said, after a minute.

"You should shut the door," Rodney suggested. "Right now."

" _We_ should be out there helping." John crossed his arms. "They're our _friends_."

"They're trained for this." Rodney raised his chin and stared John down. "And how would we get back if the Wraith got you?"

"Got _what_?" John asked, and stood, looking resolute and defiant and like he was about to do something incredibly stupid. "My life-force? Someone already got that. Even here, I'm still dead. I'm not hungry, or tired. I'd be safer than anyone in a fight."

"Then I'm going with you," Rodney said. He was trying to call John's bluff by forcing him to realize that Rodney would be in danger if John was in danger.

Unfortunately, John just shrugged and pulled out the wand Ronon had given him. "Stay behind me," John said, gesturing with his free hand.

When they reached the doors, and the reality of what they were doing hit Rodney, he grabbed John's sleeve to drag him to a stop.

"You obviously think nothing's going to happen, but we're walking into a battle against Other Side monsters and who knows? So I just wanted to say... you're my best friend. Maybe things will be different for you now that you can meet new people. I want you to have more friends and a normal life, and be happy. But we grew up together, and we've been weird together and had fights and know each other's secrets, and. You're important to me." He held out his hand for John to shake.

John's eyes were wide, and he looked shocked and vulnerable. He turned jerkily just enough that he could take Rodney's hand. His fingers were cold in Rodney's nervously-sweaty grasp.

They were definitely having an emotional moment, Rodney decided. He wondered whether he should try another hug, or maybe a kiss, except John would probably consider that the worst kind of opportunism, especially after Rodney had spent months politely not mentioning anything about John's possible feelings, or his feelings for John, which Rodney wasn't clear on himself. He was familiar with lust, but love was an unknown territory; he had no idea where the border was, or what the local customs were on the other side.

When John had been a ghost, Rodney had had all the time in the world to waffle about how he felt, but now... John could talk to _anyone_ , _touch_ anyone. For all John talked about going back, Rodney knew he must be considering staying here – why not, if he didn't know that Rodney loved him, which he didn't, because Rodney had never been certain enough to say anything.

Fortunately – or not – a pair of Wraith on patrol clomped up the stairs, armed with wands that were taller than Jeannie. They were tall and wore faceless masks, and John shoved Rodney back behind him. They stood there frozen in the shadow of the doorway, waiting for the Wraith to get close enough to annihilate. Rodney held his wand in his shaking hand and wished as hard as he could that he was home safe, and all this a nightmare.

"Hey, ugly," John said, loud enough to echo. When the two Wraith turned unerringly on his position, John hit them both with annihilation, the red bolts of the curse bright enough to make Rodney wince.

The Wraith staggered back but didn't fall, and Rodney thought that this was bad, really really bad, staring-death-in-the-face bad.

John annihilated them again, and again, and one more time, which finally knocked them to their knees, but they still weren't dead.

"You're doing it wrong," Rodney said, and shoved John to the side. He'd seen enough violence on TV to know how it was supposed to happen. One good annihilation and... blood everywhere.

He brought his wand down with determination, at the same time as John, and the combined bolts lashed out in angry red, finally rendering the Wraith unmoving.

"There," Rodney said, feeling bile in the back of his throat. "That's how it's done."

John bit his lip hard. "Ronon said their heads need to be cut off." He fingered his dagger indecisively.

"Be my guest," Rodney said, with a half-hysterical wave of his hand. "Maybe they're just faking being dead until you're close enough to be a tasty snack."

"Maybe they'll sneak up behind us later on," John said, but he looked at the stairs leading down into the tower. "We should go help Teyla."

"I'm sure Ronon was joking," Rodney said, and pushed John towards the staircase and away from the dead Wraith.

Halfway down, Rodney could already hear the sounds of a melee, shouting and cursing, glass breaking and the shriek of metal sundering. The staircase was wound with red vines – no, tentacles – that thickened and spread out to the walls the further they went.

"The city's... not happy," John said in a whisper, stepping over a viscous-looking mass of slime on the last step and holding his wand out at the ready as he looked around the deserted mezzanine they were on. All around them, machines and consoles lay smothered under layers of red tentacles. "Can't you feel it?"

Rodney shook his head, and then just for the hell of it tried to read the city's magical aura. He was hampered by the fact that he didn't believe auras could be sensed by anything other than properly calculated devices, or that non-living entities like _metropolises_ had any kind of sentience.

"Wraith bad," John breathed out, and jerked a thumb towards the continuation of the stairs, leading down to the battle they could hear raging. "People good."

 _People losing badly_ , Rodney thought, when the fight came into view. Directly in front of the staircase was a great arch, backed by a window and a cracked Stargate that had been completely encased in tentacles. In front of that was a great chair, like a throne, and Rodney's heart skipped up into his throat as the woman on the throne turned her keen interest away from the battle and stared straight at him.

Her long white hair hung down over her shoulders, and her face was pale, with a luminous green cast. Her eyebrows slanted up like Mr Spock's, Rodney thought distantly. She had breathing slits on her cheeks and dark tattoos curling over her face like vines. Her dress was made from a weirdly reflective black leather that seemed both malevolent and sentient, and she was the most beautiful sight he'd ever seen.

He wanted her to praise him, run her sharp nails over his scalp and tell him he was good. He wanted to tell her all about life on His Side of the Stargate. He wanted to open the gate for her and lead her through, introduce her to all the people in Toronto.

He walked forward and the Wraith moved out of his way, because their Queen was beckoning to him with a crooked finger, and a warm smile of sharp teeth.

"And how many live in your... Toronto?" she asked, leaning forward, and Rodney took another eager step. "Take my hand. If you please me, I will keep you alive forever, like a god."

Living forever gave Rodney pause. He seemed to recall thinking that was a bad thing, lonely for some reason. But he wouldn't mind being worshipped, just a little. All he had to do was reach out – 

He found himself hauled backwards by the collar of his coat, shaken, and shoved to the side, out of the way, with Ronon scowling down at him like he was an _idiot_.

"It's a glamour," Teyla said in Rodney's ear, and he jumped. He hadn't even known she was near. "She lies to you."

The room suddenly seemed less brilliant, and the memory of the Queen on the throne – _in his head_ – more monstrous.

"Down," Ronon barked, and shoved Rodney to the floor just in time to avoid being annihilated by one of the Wraith wands. Rodney remembered, blurrily, that he had a wand of his own. He fumbled it into his hand, and cast a bolt of annihilation at a Wraith trying to dessicate Teyla. He wasn't sure she'd really needed his help – she had the Wraith's head rolling off just seconds later – but she flashed Rodney a smile.

He had the terrible, gut-wrenching feeling that they were all forgetting something, something important. He managed to get to his feet and staggered towards Ronon, meaning to ask him, but Ronon had his sword out and was surrounded by bodies, by the dead, and Rodney didn't want to die. He liked talking too much, for one thing, and the dead were silent, silent the way...

The way John was, and Rodney fought to hang onto that name, the idea of John that kept slipping free of his thoughts. _The Queen,_ Rodney thought. _She's_ still _in my head, she's making me forget._

Everyone in the room, it seemed, had forgotten about the Queen, so Rodney turned alone to look for her by the throne.

Once he _really_ looked he saw her, looming over John, who was on his knees, chin raised by one of the Queen's fingers, the sharp nail against the soft, vulnerable skin of his throat. John wasn't saying anything, but his stiffness and uneasy posture suggested he was trapped, and the Queen was holding him in thrall. Rodney had no idea how to save him.

He spun around and grabbed Teyla, and almost forgot John again in that moment of distraction.

"Look at the Queen," he yelled over the noise of fighting, gesturing with the hand holding his wand. "She's got... what's-his-name. My friend," he added, angry that he was being so easily manipulated. "John," he managed, in a burst of fury. "She has John."

"I don't," Teyla started, and then narrowed her eyes. "He is resisting her."

"She must know what he is," Rodney said. He thought of all the things John was – descendant of Other Side magicians, perhaps; a ghost who grew up; Rodney's best friend who was funny and dorky and smart – and then he realized that the Queen was pulling those thoughts out of him, weaving an entrapment from his memories.

She looked up from John to give Rodney a triumphant smile, and Rodney knew helplessly that she had realized he loved John at the same moment as it dawned on rodney. And John took the opportunity of that distraction to grab his dagger and drive it up into the Queen's chest.

The Queen screamed; all the Wraith stuttered to a dazed halt. The Queen fell forward onto John, pinning and trapping him. Teyla and Ronon shouted their anger, and then the Queen slammed her hand down onto John's chest and began to feed.

Some of Sora's soldiers had been killed by the Wraith; their bodies sprawled on the floor, dessicated and mostly skeletal in clothes torn away around the bloody hand-marks from feeding. But Rodney had never witnessed the process of someone's life-force being ripped away, and he wasn't seeing it now.

John was smiling.

A terrible, twisted, hurting smile, as he grabbed the Queen's wrist and held her to him, his other hand still twisting the dagger up into her. John's shirt was glistening wet with her blood. The Queen snarled in his face, but Rodney could see her shaking, her face withering, her hair crumbling to dust. The whole room seemed to waver like heat on a summer pavement, and Rodney was torn between desperately wanting to save his Queen and wanting to grab Ronon's sword and lop her head off.

He didn't get a chance, because the Queen's wasting body was no longer able to support itself. With an agonized hiss she crumpled forward. John only just managed to scramble free before her crumbling skull toppled onto the floor and cracked, her ribs, femurs, all of her skeleton falling from her dress to skitter across the floor like an osteomancer's bone-scattering.

With the Queen's death, the soldiers stumbled to a confused halt, arms falling slack to their sides, resembling nothing more than monstrous, abandoned puppets. Ronon and Teyla worked with Sora and her team, killing them efficiently, one after the other; Rodney supposed the soldiers were trapped by the Queen's enchantments, and deserved to be released by death. He doubted any rehabilitation was possible. How could it be, when people were food to the Wraith?

Rodney made his way over to the cracked Stargate, tense and wary, jumping at every horrible slaughterhouse sound, but needing to see if John was okay. He called John's name, but John didn't answer.

Close up, John's skin was a weird color, and not just a trick of the light from the stained-glass windows. His arms were a silvery blue, and when Rodney put a hand on John's shoulder, he saw that there were hard ridges rising up under John's skin like spines and scales. John rolled over to look at him, moving with stiff uncoordination; his eyes were wide and the pupils had stretched into serpent-like slits. John opened his mouth, but seemed to have lost the power of speech, which made Rodney furious, because John didn't deserve that, not again.

As Rodney watched, John's body rippled and elongated, his clothes tearing apart. John's fingers twisted into talons, and Rodney jerked back, imagining himself carelessly eviscerated. John made a strangled whimpering sound, and the ridges along his thin, naked back split open as John spread an impossible span of wings, translucent blue.

Rodney stumbled back as far away as he could get, and the dragon – John – tossed his head, threw wide a mouthful of fangs, and roared.

In his peripheral vision Rodney saw Ronon raise his wand towards John, and he moved as fast as he could to block any curses cast.

"It's John, don't," Rodney gabbled, but Teyla caught him and held him firmly.

"I know," Ronon said, frowning as he concentrated. He let loose a ball of red energy that soared past the dragon's head, through the Stargate, and blasted out most of the far wall, spilling the dazzling brightness of morning into the room. "Don't want him flying into windows."

"Be glad," Teyla said, her hands still tight around Rodney's biceps. She leaned forward enough to rest her head against Rodney's as John crawled through the gate, shook his wings open, took a few tentative steps forward, and then sprang through the hole Ronon had opened. He was nearly the same color as the summer sky, Rodney thought, impossibly beautiful as he rode the wind, soaring up until he disappeared from sight. "He really is one of the Ancestors," Teyla went on, wonder in her words. "He can join his people in Ascendance."

" _I'm_ his people," Rodney said. The words came out sounding more grieved than angry, and Rodney snapped his mouth shut. Ronon gave him a sharp, knowing look anyway. "I just – he was _dead_ , and he's been with me for _years_ but I never heard his voice until a few days ago and," he swallowed down a hard lump in his throat, "he won't be happy. How can he be happy?"

"He's flying," Teyla chided.

Ronon shrugged, as if discussion was pointless, and gave Teyla a lift of his eyebrows. "Should get him back to your camp," he said, talking about Rodney like he was a child. "The Queen's dead, but the city's not safe. Especially for someone from the Other Side. Wraith are good at traps."

Teyla nodded. Her arms loosened their grip, but she gave Rodney a quick backwards embrace before releasing him.

"Sora will be delighted to be put in charge." She smiled tightly, and Rodney understood _delighted_ to mean _overbearing and insufferable_. "I'll ask Halling if he can spare us seats on a boat," she added.

Rodney started to protest that he got sick on boats, and the ringship was much more civilized, and then remembered with a jolt that their only pilot had just metamorphosed into a dragon and left them here. All the fight drained out of him. He was left feeling nothing besides a numb kind of ache, and he simply couldn't be bothered to raise a protest as he was led down an interminable series of stairs and through a series of roads that led to a makeshift dock. Someone painted his coat with a buoyancy crème to drown-proof him, and then he was guided to a seat on a hard bench in the stern, watching the city of Atlantis grow small and distant as the enchanted boat sped towards the unseen shore.

Sometime after Atlantis disappeared beyond the horizon, the water around the boat trembled, waves whitecapping. As the boat rocked frantically Rodney tried not to blurt out that they were all going to die horrible deaths.

And then the dragon slid up out of the water like a knife from a sheath, so close that the tip of a beating wing whipped water over all of them as the dragon rose. Rodney craned his neck to watch John arc up into the sky. Despite everything, he grinned as John twisted in exuberant circles around the sun before dropping like a silver ribbon straight down into the ocean, tucking his wings tight at the last second so he disappeared with barely a ripple.

"John drowned," Rodney said, abrupt and overloud, attracting the attention of other passengers, who were mostly wounded soldiers dazed by wounds and painkilling potions. He coughed and lowered his voice. "I mean, not now, obviously, but where we came from, someone drowned him as a child, that's how he died. Someone held him under the water until he stopped breathing, before he met me. He's never... he doesn't like water much."

Teyla crossed her arms, hands on her elbows as if chilled, though that might be because she was wet through. "But he's –" she lifted her chin towards the spot where John had disappeared – "kin to the Ancestors. Do your people not value the old ways? Don't they know where magic came from?"

Rodney shrugged. "Magic's caused by a bunch of specialized microscopic particles that allow the impossible to become possible."

Ronon turned from his survey of the sky to give him a flat stare, like he was stupid, and then swept his gaze away, like Rodney wasn't even worth glaring at. "In the Ancestors' Own Side, everyone and everything was made of magic, and magic followed them when they traveled through the Gates. Every Satedan child knew that."

Rodney waved one hand. "Where I come from, magical knowledge is given to only the best students, who mostly use it for... manufacturing and medicine and things. Normal people don't know much. Or care, really. I only found out about the Stargate by accident, and we had to break in and activate it in secret. Putting my whole academic career at risk." There were not going to be any showers of glory if Rodney returned without John; he'd hate it if there were.

"In stories, the Ancestors don't die," Ronon said, sounding impatient, like Rodney was missing the point on purpose. "They dive into deep water, and when they stop breathing they become dragons." He shrugged and jerked his thumb upwards. "And dragons can Ascend to the stars. I always thought that was metaphors. Or lies."

"My world doesn't have dragons," Rodney said, feeling numb and a little dizzy. Over and over in his head he saw hands holding John under water until he tranformed; sometimes human hands but sometimes – in his overactive imagination – the Queen's. He pictured those hands letting John's lifeless body sink and his murderer cursing him... and later on, John walking up out of the water and following the comic books he'd loved along the arcane route to Toronto.

"I believe our Ancestors watch over us," Teyla said, gently, speaking to both of them. "Perhaps they saw that we had a need and John had a need, and knew we could help each other."

The boat swept over the water, seeming to pick up speed as the nearing shore grew clearer.

"I believe we help ourselves," Ronon said with reluctantance, as if he didn't want to contradict Teyla. "Didn't see any Ancestors defending my people from the Wraith. Or even their own city."

"I tried to help John. I failed." Rodney rubbed his hands over his face, weary and heart-sick. "I thought I'd fixed him, made him mostly real by coming here, and it didn't even last a day before I got him cursed worse than before. He can't go back to my world, we don't have dragons. And I can't stay here."

Ronon reached over and put a large comforting hand on Rodney's shoulder. "We owe him. We'll take care of him. Maybe he's wise or something now."

"Crap," Rodney said, and breathed very carefully until the boat was hauled up on the sandy shore and he didn't feel like crying any more.

He helped the injured to the healers' tents, and fetched driftwood for the bonfire which Teyla built on the beach, to keep them warm while they waited for the return of the other boats. The wood was permeated with magic, and the flames danced up in all the colors of the rainbow, like fireworks, like a celebration. 

Rodney stayed just long enough to get dry, but someone brought down a lute and started a sing-along, which reminded Rodney of John. He wondered if John was as good at singing as he was at playing the lute, which was to say, not brilliant and certainly not bardic, but pleasant to listen to. He hoped not; there had to be something John was rubbish at. Imperfections made people interesting.

He found a big sun-warm rock still in sight of the fire but far enough away to feel private, and sat there, watching the waves' endless cycle. Boats arrived from the city and unloaded battle-weary warriors; as soon as they were emptied, teams of specialists and scholars, armed with cleansing potions and elaborate apparatuses for detecting traps, climbed aboard and set off. No one asked for Rodney's help and he felt too drained to offer.

Rodney still had not returned his borrowed wand, and he examined it now, wondering if it would work on His Side. He doubted it. He'd only heard of them in novels and on TV shows, which were probably based on tales carried back from the Other Side. 

He tried to levitate a few rocks, was amazed when he succeeded, and spent ten minutes learning how to manipulate them so that they skipped neatly across the water when flicked away by wand-directed magic. Sora had implied that her people were developing weapons against the Wraith that sounded similar to thaumonuclear devices, capable of causing wide-spread devastation and illness. It raised the question of whether a world without The Amazing Spider-Man understood the concept of _with great power comes great responsibility_. Considering that the Ancestors had left all the people of this world behind to die horribly, he didn't think so.

He didn't understand things here, the magic or the people, and it was frightening. Without John, he felt very much alone.

He wasn't conscious of asking the magic to do anything, but a bright light flashed out from the wand anyway, spreading like a pink sunset glow across the water. Rodney dropped the wand in shock, blinking away spots in his vision, and then scrambled down to the sand to grab the wand up and make sure he hadn't broken something he had no idea how to fix.

The wand _looked_ okay, and Rodney put it away quickly, hoping no one from the circle around the bonfire had seen and was inclined to investigate. Maybe he could pretend he'd done that on purpose.

A sudden sharp gust of wind came up from the lake, and Rodney stepped back instinctively, preferring his shoes to stay dry. He wondered if a storm was blowing in, or if his stray thoughts had just mentally sunk the entire city of Atlantis, which was a hair-raising doubt. Looking out over the water, he saw a fast silver snake of motion moving towards him, and barely had a chance to think _dragon_ before beating wings sent the sand around him dancing up in clouds.

John – the dragon – circled Rodney on the beach, wings canted to ride the wind, and then dropped. When the great clawed feet scraped the sand suddenly he was John again, stumbling awkwardly into human form with reeling steps, naked, chest heaving, serpent-slit pupils staring blindly around until John coughed and blinked hard and stared straight at Rodney with human eyes. He looked as if he was terrified of what he'd see on Rodney's face but had to look anyway, had to face the truth.

Rodney knew deep down that if this were a film he'd have some heartwarming speech to give here, scripted lines that could make everything better, but he was currently betrayed by words.

He wanted to tell John to stay with him, but not if John really wanted to be a dragon, because he wanted John to be happy even if that meant Rodney was unhappy, but he didn't see why they shouldn't _both_ be happy. That was what happened in films.

He wanted to tell John that the whole secretly-a-dragon thing was pretty radical, and he wasn't scared – seriously, John had made him immune to things that should be terrifying ever since he showed up to haunt Rodney's comic books.

All those feelings bottlenecked in his throat, so all he could manage was to croak out John's name and then take the few certain steps forward to grab him into a tight embrace and reassure himself that John was breathing, and warm, and real.

"No more dying," Rodney said into the base of John's neck, not caring that John's hair was damp and his skin tasted like lake-water. "And don't, don't leave me alone."

John's hands settled with stiff unease on Rodney's shoulders, and Rodney had a flash of fear that John was trying to push him away; but then John slid his hands down to the center of Rodney's back and he... hung on, like a shipwrecked sailor to a raft. Rodney could feel John breathing, and the way his weight pressed forward, as if he knew Rodney could handle it. Rodney started to speak, a couple of times, but finally gave up. Eventually, John shifted awkwardly foot to foot, and rested his face along Rodney's shoulder.

"I'm not wearing pants," John confessed miserably.

"Like I _care_ ," Rodney assured him. "You're not dead, you're human, you can _talk_ , why would I care about pants?"

"But _I_ do," John snapped, and suddenly Rodney _got_ John's awkward pose and the strain in his voice.

"Here, take my coat," Rodney ordered. "It's big enough, maybe." He pulled one arm then the other through the sleeves, hanging onto John and the coat, and then passing it over for John to slip on. The front fastenings were bits of carved bone that went through rope loops, and obviously the coat was going to be inadequate; it gaped open and revealed the furring of chest hair that Rodney was amused to see John had. "Perfectly natural, healthy human reaction, et cetera. Maybe if you tied my shirt on sideways." Rodney tugged off his flannel shirt and tried to wrap it around John's waist without looking at what he was doing. John smacked his hands away and tied the sleeves together tightly, tugging to get both his ass and his dick covered. "It happens to everyone sometime," Rodney ventured; John's face was still red, his expression angry but probably more with embarrassment than at Rodney. "You've seen me naked umpteen times, and you've walked in on me jerking off, I know you have."

John made a noise and tested the double knot he'd made. "I watched you, a couple times," he said, eyes flicking to Rodney's face. "After I kissed you. I wanted to do that for you, if you'd let me, but I never – " he hunched his shoulders in.

"We can now." Rodney raised his hand before he realized that he didn't know where he wanted to touch. John's face, but he couldn't, and he wasn't going to clap John's shoulder like they were male bonding, so he ended up curling his fingers around the side of John's neck. John startled, but his eyes closed as if something had eased.

"You don't like me like that," John said, quiet and matter-of-fact. "Not when I'm dead, or a boy."

"It's _unfair_ that you're dead," Rodney corrected. "But I like you better than anyone." He leaned in, just a bit, put his other hand on John's side. "My first two kisses were terrible, so this probably won't be much good, either, but."

Rodney leaned in just that bit more, enough to put his mouth over John's. John was very still for a breathless moment, and then tentatively kissed back, tilting his head to the side. He tasted like water, and Rodney was going to kiss him all over, he decided, until John was clean and only tasted like himself. Except that John kept getting in the way of Rodney's plan, trapping Rodney's mouth with his own, tracing his tongue along the line of Rodney's lower lip until Rodney opened to him, sliding his hands into Rodney's hair and pressing against him until Rodney had to push back or stumble.

It was a little weird, because when Rodney had been making out with April Bingham he'd tried very hard not to jab her with his hard-on. He had tried to be polite. But John not only didn't mind, he went wide-eyed and reached down with one hand like he had to check and make sure Rodney wasn't just carrying around Crunchie bars in his pocket or something. No one had ever touched Rodney's dick before, and all of a sudden he realized he was about to _have sex_ while standing _on a beach_ in front of a whole bunch of people who were probably bored enough to find watching them amusing.

"Tent," Rodney said, and forced himself to step away. John reached for him anyway, and Rodney let John catch his hand and weave their fingers together. "Privacy, good."

John bit his lip, and then tried to tug Rodney's flannel shirt down even more. "Usually I have self-control."

Rodney tugged, pulling John after him, up towards the woodline and skirting away from the bonfire. "I've seen your self-control, it's admirable, right now I want to see you naked and touch you all over."

"Sure," John said, sounding a little dazed, and Rodney slowed a little. After all, John didn't have pants, and he'd been a dragon for most of the day. That was probably pretty strange to have to live with.

In the camp, they only ran into Ronon, who didn't need anything explained to him. He gave them both a terrifying, knowing grin, eyebrows raised salaciously, and told John he'd try and find him some real clothes.

"Don't bother. We'll be going home soon," John said, and glanced at Rodney, who shrugged. "Tomorrow." John nodded once, decisively. "Need to face the music."

"Not with your knees bare like a kid," Ronon scoffed, and waved them on.

Rodney hauled John towards their tent as fast as he could. "Embarrassing us in front of the Other Siders again," he said, as John held the tent flap up and pushed him in. Rodney watched John tie the flap down and grinned. "I can't take you anywhere."

"You can take me anywhere," John contradicted, and tugged at the sleeve to Rodney's t-shirt. "Take this off."

"Do naked guys turn you on?" Rodney asked through the worn cotton muffling his face. "How did you know you were, you know." He dropped the shirt on the sleeping mat and looked at John as he tried to comb his hair down. John was fiddling with the undone fasteners on the coat and looking petrified with mortification. "Never mind." He pointed at John and made a hurry-up-and-strip gesture. "I've never done this," Rodney blurted out. "It's weird being nervous with you."

"Stop thinking," John suggested, and let the coat slide to the floor. He grabbed Rodney – not suavely at all – and nudged him down, and then stretched out at his side, solid and warm. Rodney opened his mouth to ask what they were going to do, and John pinched his nipple. It wasn't hard enough to be painful; it was strange and different, and when John ran his thumb over the top, Rodney shivered and jerked and felt the touch like a current of magic running straight to his dick. "Huh," John said, with the same frown lines on his forehead that Rodney was used to seeing in relation to complex numerology.

Rodney retaliated by placing his hand on John's stomach and feeling his muscles tighten. John put his mouth on Rodney's nipple, which should have been ridiculous but instead felt good in a way that reminded him of the photo-essay in the magazine about blowjobs. He tugged at the shirt knotted around John's waist.

"Off," he said, and while John was untying he shoved off his own jeans and shoes. As soon as John was naked Rodney had to look from his dick to John's to see whose was bigger. They were both hard, but weirdly different in length and girth, plus John was circumcised, so Rodney couldn't really say for sure. He curled his fingers around John's dick to see if it felt different; not that much. The angle was hard to get used to, but John shivered and buried his moans against Rodney's shoulder in a way that Rodney liked very much. He wondered if this was what it felt like to be made of magic, to always have the prickling awareness of impossible potential under your skin.

Then John pushed up and shifted until he was settled over Rodney, holding his weight on hands and knees, and rocked his hips slowly, so his dick slid alongside Rodney's. The sensation was so new and different that Rodney didn't even know how to process it in his head, but that was all right. His body figured out what needed to be done all by itself; arms pulling John down into a kiss that was breathless and wet, hips finding a rhythm that matched John's own, feet digging into the sleeping mat, toes curling. Between them Rodney could feel sweat and the embarrassing dampness from the first leaks of come, but that made sliding together easier. Rodney started to see actual flashes of stars behind his squeezed-shut eyelids as he came, holding John as hard as he could, like he could pull him inside and feel like this forever.

John groaned and Rodney wondered for a moment if he should loosen his grip, but then John cried out, sharply, and shoved the back of his hand against his mouth to stop the noise he made as his thrusts became frantic and finally climactic. John panted hard, gone limp where he lay across Rodney, and Rodney ran his fingers through John's hair.

"Okay," John said, when he got his breath back. "Let's do that again."

Rodney pushed him off to the side and looked around for a towel or something else he could use to mop up. "Dinner first." He found a sock, wiped himself mostly clean, and handed it to John, who made a face but followed suit. "Eat in or go out?" Something outside smelled like barbeque, but something else smelled unpleasantly like boiled cabbage.

John stretched one arm out as far as he could, snagged Rodney's backpack with one finger, and dragged it over so he could pull out a Crunchie bar and waggle it enticingly. "Brain food."

Rodney snatched it and stripped the wrapper halfway down. "What's being a dragon like?" he asked, and took a healthy bite.

John made a face. "You're still nervous?"

Rodney shook his head, and swallowed down most of what was in his mouth. "Just curious. You probably love flying."

"It's," John mashed his lips together and frowned, like he was searching for words, "just what dragons _do_ , so it doesn't feel any different from walking. The sky is prettier. I could see... all the light. And the stars, the daytime sky was full of stars. Except it wasn't blue, it was... some color made out of magic. I could see magic," he added diffidently.

"You were blue," Rodney said. "Sort of. Greyish blue. Teyla says it proves you're an Ancestor."

"There weren't any other dragons," John said. "I looked everywhere. Scared some seagulls. I spoke to a giant squid, way down under the water, she said there hadn't been any dragons in years. She said it had been nice not having predators around."

"So the Ancestors didn't piss everyone off when they left," Rodney said, and finished off his candy bar. "Good to know. But I'm not surprised they didn't leave a forwarding address. Are you sorry you didn't find – " he made air-quotes – "your people?"

"My friends are my people," John said decisively, and then looked abashed. "Even Ronon and Teyla know me better than any Ancestors," he explained. "Even Sora and _Charin_."

Rodney grabbed his bag and slaked his thirst with flat grape soda. "Me best of all."

"Yeah," John said, sounding exasperated, but he crawled over to nudge Rodney backwards with kisses. "You're sweet," he complained, licking Rodney's lips. "You're going to be so hyper."

"Up all night," Rodney agreed, raising his eyebrows, and John was startled into laughter. Rodney took advantage of his distraction to push John down and pin him to the sleeping mat. This time, Rodney was going to be on top.

*

John woke Rodney up by not masturbating quietly enough for Rodney to sleep through. John hadn't had years of experience learning how to touch himself, so he was watching himself in the pale morning light, and _experimenting_. He gasped, sucking air in through his teeth when he discovered something he liked, and sometimes his stomach muscles tightened and he gave a sharp _oh_ of surprise. Rodney found that amazingly hot, even though he'd woken up with a post-sugar headache.

Rodney gave away that he was awake when he shifted to get a better view. John looked embarrassed, but Rodney gave him a grin and gestured for him to go on.

"I want to see you come," Rodney told him. John made a new, strangled noise, his hand moving faster, toes curling as his heels dug into the sleeping mat. "I like that you're noisy."

John shuddered and dropped his head, his hand moving so fast and tight now that Rodney knew he was pushing himself to where pleasure bordered pain. John's chest heaved, his shoulders flexed hard, and then he came, practically hitting his own face with come as he bent with the sudden force of release. Rodney watched him ride out the jolts of orgasm, figuring out how to keep the sensation going until it was too much, his dick over-sensitive and aching.

John reached for Rodney then, to kiss him until his breathing had slowed to nearly normal.

"My turn now," Rodney said, guiding John's hand down pointedly.

John bit Rodney's neck, playfully and not very hard. Rodney'd read about that kind of thing being sexy but had never been able to figure out why. Right now, he would not mind John biting bruises all over his body; he hadn't known that about himself.

"Only if you go get me some pants afterwards," John said, and licked over the spot he'd bitten. Rodney's dick jumped, and he felt John snort in amusement.

"Whatever," Rodney agreed, and John's wet palm rubbed slick up his length. And that was something else new and wonderful, and right now, he'd give John anything and everything.

Of course, after Rodney came, he realized he'd been neatly manipulated into having to get dressed and go outside and find Ronon, who gave him a look which said plainly that the tents were not half as soundproof as Rodney had hoped. Unlike John, Rodney turned bright red with embarrassment; Ronon seemed amused and not at all inclined to let Rodney off the hook. He followed Rodney back to the tent, spare clothes dangling carelessly from one hand, yanking Rodney to a halt only once, to call Teyla over.

Back at the tent, John's smugness at getting to lie around and enjoy the afterglow vaporized when Rodney told him Ronon and Teyla were here, and John was the only one naked. Ronon's pants were a rough brown wool, but John got them tied on in seconds. Rodney let John keep his flannel shirt; he had his moments of magnanimity. He also didn't protest when John shouldered his backpack; the device was heavy and Rodney'd had to carry it all yesterday.

Teyla led them all to the firepit by the leaders' tents, where there were long benches and a table set out with breakfast things. Teyla poured everyone cups of hot spicy tea as they sat, and gave Ronon a pointed glance.

"Teyla and I are going with you," Ronon said, looking at Rodney and speaking slowly, as if expecting him to have trouble grasping what he was saying.

"That's... nice but ridiculous and unnecessary," Rodney said, frowning as he swallowed down the last gulp of his tea. Teyla quietly refilled his cup.

Ronon shrugged. "You don't know how to get to the Ancestor's Ring," he pointed out. "You're not leaving without our help."

Rodney narrowed his eyes. "I _knew_ there must have been some grain of truth to all those stories about Other Siders being... sneaky tricksters."

"Except you're the Other Siders to us," Ronon pointed out. "And you got here by sneaking."

"From what you have told us," Teyla cut in smoothly, "you will probably be punished when you return to your world. We just worry that your punishment will mean you'll never be able to return, and that would be – " she looked at John with compassion – "cruel."

"You should stay," Ronon said, and crossed his arms.

"Rodney has family." John's words were quiet but uncompromising. "His mother and his little sister. And he's dreamed about studying magic all his life. He doesn't want to become a warrior fighting Wraith."

Rodney frowned. "I thought we defeated the Wraith." He looked at John for confirmation. "You killed their Queen."

"One Queen," Teyla said. "Wraith are... never ending, it is true."

"But then," Rodney said, and stopped. "People from My Side used to come here. They must know about the Wraith, or the Ancestors leaving. That's..." He waved the hand not holding his cup.

"Cowardly," John supplied. "Yeah. It is."

"John," Teyla said, her voice dragging his name out as if she were reluctant to speak. "Forgive me for saying this, but you have less than Rodney does in your world. You cannot even talk?" she asked, and looked pained when John shrugged. "You are welcome to stay with my people. Making friends here and learning who and what you are... you might be happy."

John's darkening expression became a glare. "I never got to choose _anything_ that happened to me. Everything was taken away. But _I'm_ deciding to stay with Rodney, and if I turn into just a ghost again," he swallowed, "I can live with that."

Ronon snorted and gave Teyla a prod with his elbow. "Told you so."

"I would never want to take your choice away from you," Teyla told John solemnly. "I apologize. But if you and Rodney are returning to your world, someone must make it clear that you cannot be denied access to the Ancestor's Ring. To that end, Ronon and I will accompany you to your Academy."

"I'm very persuasive," Ronon said, with a sharp grin.

Teyla's mouth turned up in a pleased feline smirk. "Due to the tragedy of what happened to Ronon's people, he is the last surviving member of the Satedan Bardic College faculty. Now that we have successfully occupied the Ancestor's City, the Athosian leaders' council unanimously supports placing him in charge of the city, and our warriors and scholars there."

Ronon raised one eyebrow modestly. "My kill count was persuasive."

"What do you teach?" Rodney blurted out, trying to imagine Ronon enchanting a chalkboard while he lectured on numerology. The mental image was terrifying.

"Ronon is a poet," Teyla said, and ignored how John snorted, trying to hide his amusement. "But we will say, when you lead our delegation through the Ring, that he is the commander of a city of the Ancestors and I am the leader of the Athosian people. And we will demand that the both of you be part of the personnel Your Side sends to our aid."

"You're not including Sora," John said.

To Rodney it sounded like a non sequitur, but Teyla nodded as if she'd been expecting to be asked that. "She is the eldest daughter of a powerful leader, that is true, but she does not represent her government. And I would prefer to make an arrangement... before her government is aware of the opportunity to seize the City from our control."

"She's a spy?" Rodney asked. When everyone looked at him as if surprised he hadn't caught on earlier, he sighed. Public school education hadn't prepared him for inter-Side politics and Other Side intrigue.

"She is an ally against the Wraith," Teyla said, and stood, collecting the cups and setting them in a stack on the table. Ronon stood as well, and then John pulled Rodney up. John didn't let go of Rodney's hand, and Rodney didn't think that was for his own comfort. It was reassuring to know that John felt nervous as well. "Shall we go? It will be better," she added, "to avoid attracting attention."

Which was all very well for her and Ronon, Rodney thought as they moved through the woods on what Teyla assured him was a trail that her people used all the time. They were Other Siders and were used to being stealthy in nature. Rodney couldn't be blamed for stepping on sticks that snapped, or shouting when birds suddenly started singing. His brain had latched onto the idea that Wraith were lying in wait, and every flicker in his peripheral vision translated into panic. Just Rodney's luck to go on an adventure and return with trauma.

Ronon halted the group twice for false alarms, one a squirrel and the other nothing that Rodney could discern. But finally they broke through the undergrowth and stumbled out into the meadow with the Stargate standing in the center. Teyla made them wait while Ronon checked for any signs of danger; when he raised his hand in an all-clear, she led them forward, like children on an excursion. Rodney glanced quickly at John, who flicked his eyes skyward in an eyeroll of solidarity.

Teyla, probably possessing some kind of sixth sense, whipped around to look at both of them. John couldn't quite manage to look innocent, but the flowers in the field around him faded into pale pink.

"Look, magic," Rodney said, glad for the distraction. And then, curious, "How do you dial the Gate? We used a device – " he sketched the rough size of it in the air – "with buttons for dialing, like a phone, kind of." Teyla was carrying her two wands, battle-ready, but Rodney was pretty sure there was no place in her current outfit of leather bodice and skin-tight trousers for a device of any size.

Teyla still looked suspicious, but she pointed to where Ronon was waiting, at the side of the platform. "Ours is there."

"So why didn't your people just leave?" Rodney asked. John made a dramatic throat-slitting _shut up now_ gesture. Rodney gesticulated back. "The Ancestors did."

Teyla sighed and resumed walking. "We believe in standing our ground. And not leading the Wraith on to other worlds." At her every step, the flowers by the side of the path change color; John tried to keep his face straight, but Rodney could see Teyla trying to hold in a smile despite herself.

Rodney imagined Wraith in downtown Toronto, and shuddered. "Thank you."

"Do you have the sequence for Your Side?" Teyla asked when they reached Ronon. John dug the paper out of the backpack and handed it to her, while Rodney grabbed their device and compared it to the console Ronon was operating. They were nearly identical, differing only in size and weathering.

Ronon pressed the heel of his hand down on the last symbol, and the rings stopped moving with a clang as the magical portal erupted outwards and then shimmered to a still-rippling pool.

"You two suck at not attracting attention," Ronon told them as they climbed up to the gate. Rodney glanced behind, and grinned. The meadow looked like a rainbow, stripes of color stretching out to form vivid rings around the Gate.

"Good work, Picasso," Rodney told John.

John shrugged, his expression half self-satisfied and half wary. "One last fling," he said with diffidence that sounded false. "I... like it here."

"And this place likes you," Rodney said. "A lot." John didn't say anything, but he held out his hand for Rodney to take. John's fingers were warm. "We go, work things out, get yelled at by my mother, and then we'll be back, I promise. You can fly Teyla's ringship and Ronon will teach you how to decapitate Wraith, and we'll –" He coughed instead of finishing his sentence, remembering that Ronon and Teyla were listening.

John tugged Rodney close and kissed his cheek self-consciously before turning to face the Gate.

"On three, then," John said. "One, two, _three_ – "

Rodney stepped forward, holding tight to John, who was holding on just as fiercely. The portal's light flickered blue and brilliant over them, pure and powerful magic. One more step and they were gone.

  


*~*~*  


The light when they emerged in the dome was dazzling, filling the air like diamonds and gold. Rodney raised his chin, more certain of where he belonged than any time in his life. He stepped forward, to lead Ronon, Teyla, and John out, and glory showered him all around.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Warning(s):** John was murdered as a child; this happens offscreen but is discussed in the story; John and Rodney are 12 when the story starts, but full legal by story's end.


End file.
